HANDBOOK ON KEY DIGITAL SKILLS FOR YOUTH PARTICIPATION

A PROJECT FUNDED UNDER THE ERASMUS+ PROGRAM KA3 ACTION – SUPPORT FOR POLICY REFORM GRANT NO. 2018-3-IT03-KA347-014740

ROBERTO PAURA, DANIELA PORPIGLIA, MARA DI BERARDO EDITORS

ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE VIA GABRIELE JANNELLI 390 – 80131 NAPOLI WWW.INSTITUTEFORTHEFUTURE.IT [email protected]

ISBN 978-88-99790-20-2 FOREWORD ______

T.A.K.E. PART - Transnational Activities for Key digital skills in Engagement and youth PARTicipation is an Erasmus+ funded project led by the Italian Institute for the Future and the European Movement Albania with the aim of facing the growing disaffection of the younger generations towards politics at local, national and European level as a serious threat to democracy and inclusiveness of the whole European Union, through a structured dialogue initiative. T.A.K.E. PART has been implemented on the basis of the priorities highlighted by the EU Youth Conference, held in Sofia in 2018 in the framework of the 6th Structured Dialogue Cycle “What’s Next?”, focusing its action on the 11 strategic objectives that emerged and, specifically, on goal 3 concerning a greater involvement of young people in participatory and constructive dialogue with policy makers, and goal 9 for the strengthening of young people’s democratic participation and autonomy in all spheres of civil society.

IIF and EMA developed the project with the general objective to promote a discussion among young people on the state of the art of digital democracy tools currently used in their countries, in particular – on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity – at the level of municipalities, and to propose a strategy to implement these tools in the coming years in order to ensure their wider participation and greater integration in the policy-making process. T.A.K.E. PART involved 100 young participants from Albania and Italy (aged between 19 and 30) in a transnational structured dialogue initiative on digital democracy through two actions, both organized in Naples, Italy, the first in June 2019 and the second in November 2019.

GOALS ______

Several were the project’s strategic goals. First of all, it aimed at enabling young citizens to understand the dynamics of digital democratic processes, encouraging their greater participation in political life: to this end, the participants were initially involved in a preparation phase organized in each country, focusing on the issues related to the global challenges of digital democracy and the best practices implemented at the level of municipalities, both in the City of Naples and the City of Tirana, as well as in other European cities, in order to assess the state of the art of the methodologies of direct participation of citizens, through digital tools, in local deliberative processes. During the two transnational seminars, participants discussed with

1 experts and policy-makers on the issues of digital democracy and youth participation in local deliberative processes, working on practical proposals to be implemented in the future.

Secondly, T.A.K.E. PART tried to create a space for communication and dialogue between young people and decision-makers: the whole project was built in order to allow participants to carry out different phases of structured dialogue with experts and political representatives. In the preparatory phase, the young people involved discussed with the local administrators responsible for youth policy in the cities of Naples and Tirana and discussed with them the open issues related to digital democracy. During the final phase, participants made proposals that have been included in this Handbook, which includes both the analyses carried out during the preparatory phases on best practices in European digital democracy and concrete proposals in terms of methodologies and practices to be implemented to enhance the active involvement of young citizens in decision-making processes through digital tools.

The young participants were also able to learn about the deliberative processes of the institutions in which decisions are taken that have a direct impact on their future: both in the preparatory phase and during the transnational activities they deepened their knowledge about the democratic and participatory dynamics of European countries, thanks also to the comparison with the experts involved. Participants were asked to identify some best practices tested in Europe in order to evaluate them through SWOT analysis: Decidim, Liquid Feedback, Rousseau and Participa were taken as an example and, on the basis of the ideas that emerged, an analysis was carried out on their applicability in local governments in Europe.

TRANSNATIONAL DIALOGUE SEMINARS ______

The two transnational seminars were organized from 10 to 14 June and from 11 to 15 November 2019 in Naples, structuring the program in a similar way for both seminars. In both cases, four working groups were created on platform democracy, participatory democracy, social democracy and democratic awareness respectively. Experts on these four areas were invited to dialogue with the young people during the seminar activities. In particular, the following experts have been involved:

▪ Paolo Bory, Postdoctoral researcher and Lecturer in media studies at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Switzerland. ▪ Antonio Camorrino, Researcher at University of Napoli Federico II, where he teaches Sociology of culture and communication, and a member of the scientific committee of the Italian Institute for the Future.

▪ Stefano De Luca, Associate Professor of History of Political Doctrines at the University of Napoli Suor Orsola Benincasa and Visiting-Professor at the University of Strasbourg.

2 ▪ Rosanna De Rosa, Professor at the University of Napoli Federico II, where she teaches Political communication and Public and institutional communication.

▪ Mara Di Berardo, co-chiar of the Millennium Project Italian Node, and Research Fellow of the Italian National Research Council.

▪ Piero Dominici, Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS), Director (Scientific Listening) at the Global Listening Center and Scientific Director of the Complexity Education Project. ▪ Sabrina Franceschini, Head of the Citizenhip Communication Area at the Regione Emilia-Romagna.

▪ Gabriele Giacomini, Research Fellow at the Laboratory of New Media at the University of Udine and at the Center for Ethics and Politics at the University San Raffaele of Milan.

▪ Vincenzo Luise, Research Fellow at the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies at the University of Milan, and a co-founder of the Italian Institute for the Future. ▪ Rinaldo Mattera, fellow of the Center for the Study of Digital Democracy at the University of Napoli Suor Orsola Benincasa.

▪ Stefano Oricchio, PhD student in ‘Politics, culture and development’ at the University of Calabria.

▪ Luca Recano, PhD student in International Studies at University of Naples “L’Orientale”, a member of the “Technoculture Research Unit” and of the “Observatory on Emerging Commons of the City of Naples”.

▪ Francesco Marrazzo, Sociologist at AGCOM, the National Regulator Authority for Communications, where he serves in the Department of Economics and Statistics. ▪ Mauro Santaniello, Researcher at the University of Salerno, where he is Assistant Professor in Internet Governance and Policy.

▪ Emmanuele Somma, former member of the Computer Society and the Free Software Foundation Europe, member of GlobalLeaks.

During the two transnational seminars, the working groups applied the Shell Scenario methodology, with the aim of imagining the possible future evolution of megatrends that will impact the issues of democracy and digital with a 2030 horizon. In this way, after analyzing the current state of the art, they were able to work out their project proposals in an anticipatory perspective, looking at the changes of the next ten years and developing solutions that can respond to the evolution of the European democratic and digital system.

3 In line with the goals of a structured dialogue, T.A.K.E. PART involved political representatives both at local and national level, in all phases of the activities. At local level, EMA and IIF have involved since their preparatory meetings political decision-makers responsible for both youth policies and digital democracy policies. Specifically, IIF has involved the Department of Youth, Creativity and Innovation of the City of Naples, which promoted the call of participants and logistically supported the organization of the meetings, providing space for preparatory activities and transnational seminars. The Councilor in charge, Alessandra Clemente, took part in both June and November sessions, discussing with the participants the feasibility in the local context of the proposed measures. In a similar way, in the November session was involved the Councilor Carmine Piscopo, owner of the Department of Common Goods, Digitalization and Participatory Democracy of the City of Naples. Two sessions were also organized at the Municipality 8 of Naples, on the invitation of the President of the Municipality, with the aim of opening the project to the most complex contexts of the urban periphery (the municipality hosts the districts of Scampia and Secondigliano). The June session was attended by the President of the City Council of Naples, Sandro Fucito, who was also coordinator of the National Conference of City Councils, as well as the president of the UniVerde Foundation, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, a former Minister of the Italian Republic and president of the Federation of Greens. The UniVerde Foundation has launched the Opera2030 platform, which allows citizens to submit petitions online on sustainability issues (in particular on the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) and also involves political leaders in the adoption of proposals made and signed by other citizens.

In the November seminar Sabrina Franceschini, responsible for the for the Communication and Citizenship Area at the Emilia-Romagna Region, was invited. Franceschini presented to the participants the portal ioPartecipo+ used since 2013 for regional e-democracy. Other experts of the project were also involved for their institutional roles: for instance, Gabriele Giacomini was past city Councilor for Innovation at the Municipality of Udine, while Mauro Santaniello was head of the Communication and Innovation Unit at the Municipality of Angri and Emanuele Somma ran for the European Parliament 2019 elections for the Pirate Party.

THE HANDBOOK ______

This Handbook includes all the materials developed by the project participants and addressed to policy makers, to enhance digital and participatory democracy initiatives aimed at young people in Europe, starting from municipalities.

In the first part the participatory democracy policies and digital tools oriented to the active involvement of citizens and young people in the local deliberative processes of the two reference municipalities, Tirana (for EMA) and Naples (for IIF), are analyzed. The objective of this part is to analyze the state of the art of these tools in large and complex municipal contexts, characterized by a high presence of young people.

4 The second part includes the SWOT analyses participant carried on some current best practices of digital democracy in Europe, specifically the online platforms Decidim, LiquidFeedback, Participa, Rousseau, with the aim of identifying strengths and weaknesses taking into account the possible European socio-political 2030 scenario to elaborate concrete proposals that can be adopted and implemented in the next ten years, especially with a view to anticipation, i.e. thinking about models of digital democracy that can respond to emerging challenges. The third part includes the project proposals made by the participants of the two transnational seminars. These proposals are divided into four categories, which correspond to the four project’s sub-topic: platform democracy, participatory democracy, social democracy and democratic awareness. These are proposals that provide tools, operational and practical modalities for all the sub-topics, in order to allow policy makers to understand which tools (especially digital tools) and models, according to the young participants, are best able to foster the active participation of citizens in local deliberative processes. These proposals take into consideration both technologies already available today (e.g. social networks, online platforms) and technologies under development, such as blockchain and social contract for online voting or identification tools through fingerprinting or retinal scanning, or even big data for the optimization of urban management, in view of the 2030 scenarios developed by the participants during the two transnational seminars. Possible emerging issues in terms of privacy and reform of existing legislation are also considered.

A theoretical introduction by Mara Di Berardo, project expert, provides an overview of the theoretical debate on participatory democracy and digital democracy, as well as advice and tools to be used to implement innovative participatory democracy solutions.

5 (E)PARTICIPATION: GUIDELINES & TIPS

MARA DI BERARDO (PROJECT EXPERT – MILLENNIUM PROJECT ITALIAN NODE) ______

Public participation nowadays, especially online, have impacts on governments, society and people and influences the nature of their interrelations. Public participation in policy-making redefines the government-citizen relations going beyond simple vote during election, by changing context for policy-making (Gramberger, 2001). It does not aim at replacing representative democracy, its formal rules and principles but at strengthening democracy overall, by developing complementary and enhancing activities. The reasons for launching public participatory projects should consider how they improve many aspects of the public sphere, such as policy-making, governance and democracy.

Top-down initiatives in terms of citizen information, communication and engaging are increasing: they answer to a bottom up request of information, openness and voice, but also to governments realizing that citizens input and knowledge can be an important resource, especially when addressing complex questions. The global challenges facing humanity (Glenn, Florescu, 2007) are interconnected and need collaboration, trans-institutional solutions and participation and foresight into decision-making in order to be addressed.

Participation gives citizens and nongovernmental organizations the opportunity to take part in the decision-making affecting their lives (e-participation.eu, 2012). Together with transparency and accountability, it is a key concept for collaboration, democratization and collective intelligence. Accountability is the obligation to demonstrate that work has been conducted in compliance with and agreed upon rules and standards and to report fairly and accurately on performance results via vis-à-vis mandated roles and/or plans (OECD, 2002). Transparency in public administration is a public right. It is the freedom to know the details of the actions taken within different elements. It can be better defined as the right to public access of key information, as it induces deep trust and confidence into the actions of the system.

Inclusion is just as fundamental: governmental processes should not be limited to a top-down approach, they should include citizen involvement into the decision-making process (Tambouris et al., 2015). Our complex present requires a changed context for policy-making (Gramberger, 2001) in order to improve our future, by drawing solutions from communicating with everyone in a society. Futures studies experts anticipate that the most greatly affected populations by such major changes, are those who have had the least to say about the causes of problems, or about the potential solutions to those issues. This includes indigenous, impoverished, and illiterate or otherwise disenfranchised populations, as well as women, and youths. Reasons for developing public participation in policy-making should be internalized and carefully considered, so that these activities would not be single point initiatives, but rather integrated

6 within an overall reconsideration and strengthening of the governments-citizens relations. Public participation needs a new paradigm (Millard, 2006), redistributing power for addressing our economic, demographic, environmental, social and cultural challenges and sharing responsibilities among citizens, governments, communities and private sector for meeting the changes we need.

Electronic participation (e-participation) is a new model for public involvement in decision- making processes via the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). Specific opportunities and challenges are related to decision and policy-making by government, empowerment of communities and localities from the bottom, transparency, openness and accountability and other rights (Millard et al., 2009). The ICTs solutions used by governments to provide public services and to engage citizens in policy-making are known as “e-participation tools” (Kinyik, 2015), such as, for instance, e-polling, voting, campaigning, petitions and consultation, fora, chat, social media, and video and deliberative platforms.

When e-participation is defined by the use of ICTs to support the democratic decision-making process, its definition overlaps that of electronic democracy (e-democracy). Two main components of e-democracy are (Macintosh, 2004): e-participation, with consultation and dialogue between citizens and governments for democratic decision-making, and the electoral process, including the technical e-voting matter. E-democracy is a broader way to conceive e- participation (Korthagen et al., 2018): it is a general framework for supporting the democratic processes and strengthening representative democracy (Macintosh, 2004), and involves online public engagement in political decision-making and opinion forming (Korthagen et al., 2018). It is a practice of democracy with the support of digital media in political communication and participation, to be based on participatory and deliberative democracy models and influencing offline political processes (Korthagen et al., 2018). It is not overall “institutionalized” yet, being it is often considered for “supporting” or “enhancing” other central and institutionalized democratic ways.

E-participation involves the use of ICTs to support information provision and top-down engagement, led by governments, or ground-up efforts to empower citizens, civil society organization and other democratically constituted groups (Macintosh and White, 2008). It develops within the e-democracy, and democracy overall, framework through specific practical ICTs applications for public use. It cannot be separated by a general principle of participation, even if it is becoming one of the main ways to develop it (e-partecipation.eu, 2012): it should be considered within a wider context of public participation, for new demands on our democratic systems and new forms of engagement by citizens. Electronic engagement cannot be discussed without considering democratic engagement in its entirety. Technology is an enabler, not the solution (Kinyik, 2015).

E-participation implies access to the Internet through a variety of channels and from different places and considers all forms of political participation making use of digital media, including formally institutionalized mechanisms and informal civic engagement (Korthagen et al., 2018). Information provision and access are basic preconditions for effective engagement and

7 empowerment, and so for e-participation, that can be considered as a public service itself and as an integral part of the electronic government (Tambouris et al., 2015).

Given the themes at play when talking about participation, understanding the reasons why developing participatory projects is a precondition of any participatory project improving activities in public affairs. This means asking yourself why you want to define participatory environments, eventually online, within your organization.

WHY PARTICIPATION? ______

Public Participation improves public policies and governance: it encourages citizens to spend time and efforts on public issues (Gramberger, 2001), governments to consider their knowledge and inputs and implementation to be more effective by avoiding wrong decisions. Citizens, non- governmental organizations and the general public become a resource for policy-making. Their involvement mitigates negative effects because decisions are not imposed but discussed, and helps “thinking outside the box” with new ideas and perspectives, especially when access to participation is enlarged to different points of view. Sometimes not engaging the public can cause higher costs in terms of opposition and failure: public participation provides input for decision- making, increasing acceptance of policy outcomes and government legitimacy.

Public participation stimulates government openness and answers to a request of transparency and accountability by giving up-to-date information and developing communication. This further stimulates public opinion and empowerment from the bottom, political debate, and participatory activities, meantime strengthening democracy: a better engagement of citizens in policy-making gives them the ability to visualize policies, means to supervise government and policy, and sharing responsibility for policy-making (OECD, 2013). In doing so, public participation also addresses concerns about a democratic deficit in the society, by trying to counter the public support decline and increase trust in governments: people have less obstacles to participate and act, learn about government policy plans, make their opinion be heard and their expectations met. The relations between governments and citizens are strengthened.

By improving knowledge of policies and governance, public participation supports intellectual development through an overall set of skills related to participatory literacy, raises awareness, and brings together different backgrounds and perspectives to address common problems. Participatory literacy (Di Berardo, 2020) can be defined as a composed ability coming from a learning process with the subject at its centre and in relationship with a community. Such learning practices increase collaborative skills, critical thinking, self-esteem and self-awareness through increasing levels of participation, and support personal and societal change. Public

8 participation helps changing behaviours and generates social and communitarian impact through involvement and interest.

Many motivations for improving public participation can be applied to e-participation as well. Public e-participation improves transparency and openness: it opens decision and policy- making, shares questions raised by the public, and reveals purposes, processes and outcomes of governments through real-time tracking and tracing, thus helping to place responsibilities, reduce corruption and make more responsible decisions. In doing so, it supports accountability (Millard et al., 2009). ICTs help further thinking and improve democracy in many specific ways. Public e-participation improves efficiency in governance: it supports cost-reduction, cost-effectiveness, and resource rationalisation and enhances the quality of public services. Meantime, it increases trust between citizens and governments (Kinyik, 2015) and helps to build seamless governments by facilitating information storage and retrieval (OECD, 2013). ICTs also support greater productivity and efficiency, time-saving, convenience, simplified procedures, less bureaucracy and administration (Millard et al., 2009). ICTs exploit the vast reserves of data the public sector has available to develop, model, visualise and simulate decisions and policies initiated by the government (Millard et al., 2009), while catching opportunities of open data. ICTs can increase the supply of information for processes, enhance communication and consultation and facilitate decision-making.

Public e-participation changes public and governments and re-engineer representative democracy: ICTs can mobilize people from “passive” to “active”, move services from “user- centric” to “user-driven” (Kinyik, 2015), and help to go from “government for people” to “government by people” (Millard, 2006). They can leverage the voices and expertise of huge numbers of individuals and groups, by setting their own agendas and developing their own policies in new forms of „crowdsourcing‟, mass collaboration and mass creativity (Millard et al., 2009), often having offline effects and supporting empowerment from the bottom.

Public e-participation reaches and engages with a wider audience: ICTs can support the extension of participation beyond formal politics and the ballot box, thus empowering communities and localities (Millard et al., 2009), broader participation, deeper contributions and supporting deliberative debates. Mobile and wireless technology can also help to address geographic and infrastructural digital divide. Public e-participation can provide relevant information in a format that is both more accessible and more understandable to the target, thus enabling more informed contributions, and deploy a range of technologies to cater for diverse public technical and communication skills (Macintosh, 2004).

Public e-participation helps to improve electronic participatory literacy that refers to the ability to contribute to collective intelligence of digital networks, and to leverage the collective intelligence of those networks in the service of personal and/or collective goals through a composite set of competences (Hockly et al., 2013). Some of the e-participatory literacy skills can be referred to digital and media literacy, a set of competences for a confident and critical use of digital tools and the Internet for various activities, and for accessing, having a critical

9 understanding of and interacting with media in all formats. Both the governmental teams and the public become more competent and skilled.

All the above reasons can be true only if there is a changed context for policy-making.

A PARTICIPATORY PROJECT LIFE CYCLE ______

Public participation can be top down or bottom up: it can be managed by governments in formally institutionalized activities or take place within informal civic engagement. Some key dimensions (Macintosh, 2004) to consider in a public participatory process be addressed within the participatory project life cycle (PPLC) phases are: level of participation, stage in the policy- making life cycle, actors, technology, rules of engagement, duration and sustainability, resources and promotion, accessibility, evaluation and outcomes. PPLC is a flexible structure of reference for planning a participatory project: it is composed by a set of consequential and contemporary steps (fig. 1) requiring each specific planning in terms of objectives, actions, resources, tools and costs, to be integrated within the overall project. The PPCL phases are background, planning, communication, action, and evaluation. The PPLC is hereby illustrated through questions and tips for planning your project. They could refer both to top-down and bottom-up initiatives, even if they imply differences in terms of political involvement and influence on policy-making.

Figure 1. The participatory project life cycle1.

Background

1

Evaluation 5 3 2 Planning

Communication

4

Action

1 Adapted from eparticipation.eu.

10 EXTRA: Levels of Participation Public participation to policy-making can be passive or active, with increasing levels of public commitments varying on a eight rungs ladder of citizen participation (Arnstein, 1969). The rungs are related to nonparticipation (“therapy” and “manipulation”, “tokenism”), passive participation (“information”, “consultation” and “placation”), and active participation (“partnership”, “delegated power” and “citizen control”), with citizens having from increasing to equal weight. Many so called public participatory actions do not go beyond passive participation. Literature (for instance, Gramberger, 2001; Macintosh, 2004) usualy simplifies three main levels of public participation:

▪ INFORMATION/COMMUNICATION: Governments produce/deliver/share information on policy making, with public access to information on demand. It is a one-way relation and can become two-way with communication. When online, this level is called e-information, the provision of information on the Internet, and needs e-enabling, implying accessibility, understandability, and support to those who do not tipically access the Internet and use ICTs. Websites are usually related to this level.

▪ CONSULTATION: Governments ask for and receive public feedback on policy-making, by setting questions, managing the process and asking for views and opinions. This is a limited two-way relation and is based on the previous phase. It should also include feedback on consultation results. When online, it becomes e-consultation, and implies e-engaging to involve a wider audience and enabling deeper contribution. It goes from simple questionnaires to open formats and crowdsourcing.

▪ ACTIVE PARTICIPATION: The public actively engage in policy-making and have a role in the relation, proposing policy options, defining agendas and debating for decision. Final decision and policy formulation often rest withing the government in most case, thus underling different levels of active participation. This is an advanced two-way relation, and should aim at building a partnership. When online, this level defines e-participation, including e-enabling to support debate on policy issues, e- engaging, e-decision-making when the decision involves citizens, and e-empowering, to stimulate bottom-up initiatives facilitated via available e-participation tools (provided or not by the governments). Activities goes from informal or formal agenda setting to non-binding, binding or even delegated decision- making. Systems can be, for instance, e-petition, e-deliberation, e-budgeting, e-voting.

BACKGROUND

During the background phase, the framework of reference should be defined, 1 including a review of the participatory culture within the organization, a collection of participatory examples, and the definition of resources and expectations in terms of goals. If the decision has been already taken, there is no reason to plan a participatory process.

Some questions you should ask yourself before planning your PPLC are the following: ➢ What is the framework for participation? ➢ Do the organisational culture and work allow participation? ➢ Do you have knowledge of participatory procedures? ➢ How are the organizational resources? ➢ What do you expect with this project?

11 Some tips to answer the previous questions are the following.

➢ Define your framework Defining a framework provides a setting in which the governments-citizens relationships can evolve, and helps understanding if the project is inserted within a wider participatory strategy. The framework is composed by legal, governmental, policy and institutional elements (Gramberger, 2001).

Legal elements are related to citizen rights, such as access, privacy and data protection, to how managing a referendum or the right to petition, how treating special interest groups and how assessing the expected impacts. They are also related to regulatory support and specific provisions for participation as a part of the process for governance and public administration.

Policy elements refer to current governmental policies for information, communication, consultation and active engagement, such as time for responding and how to do that, managing and disseminating information, formal rules with guidelines and standards for consultation activities, and how supporting the evolution of participation within a strategy. Institutional elements define who does what, coordinates, oversees, controls and enforces, how advisory bodies can help, what are the institutional interfaces and role of committees. This framework includes subjects charged with specific tasks, expertise to manage and improve the process and ICTs to improve current practices.

The project framework highlights the project drivers or barriers (Smiths et al, 2011), particularly related to the top level. They could be: significant synergies with, or disturbances from, other government policies; longer-term structural transformations of society and the economy; how governments or politicians accept and respond to public inputs; lack or presence of government policies and laws to promote public participation. ➢ Analyse the participatory culture ➢ Raise awareness The society and organizational participatory culture can be analysed in terms of barriers and drivers (Smiths et al., 2011) at the middle-level. They could be related, for instance, to: previous relationships between stakeholders; organizational workflows; level of digital divides or social acceptability of different technologies; organizational and cultural environment fitting or not the project; level and type of skills and motivations within target audience, lack or presence of social demand for participatory opportunities. Leadership commitment is fundamental for success and is sometimes a barrier to overcome. Public participation requires active interest, outputs consideration for the decision-making, a will to change work and processes, sometimes making them faster, more flexible and open. Public participation should not be limited to issues requiring it by law (such as development plans) but it should be promoted whenever they have to do with public interest, and public interest should be jointly defined.

12 Evaluate if the organization has a culture of openness, communication, transparency, and listening of citizen needs and desiderata. If changes to successfully apply a participatory project are necessary, awareness that the project is a positive opportunity should be raised, aiming at avoiding isolated exercises.

➢ Collect practices and guidelines ➢ Define initial resources and capacities ➢ Consider a participatory unit Analysing previous participatory projects, especially online, within or outside the organization: is a great point of start to plan your project. Best practices, guidelines, rewards and policy elements could also help to raise public and organizational awareness. Be aware of your specific framework when adapting and be innovative in planning, though.

Defining your organizational resources and capacities helps to address the planning phase in a more detailed way: an initial assessment of available financial, technological and human resources and structures can be started by considering who and what should be involved in planning. Eventually individuate a participatory unit for your project from the planning phase, whose aim is strengthening the relations with citizens and non-governmental organizations.

➢ Define expectations in terms of goal Before going into the project specifics, ask yourself why developing a public participatory project: improving efficiency, public policies, and governance, stimulating openness, transparency, accountability or a change in public and governments, improving (e)participatory literacy, increasing trust in governments, engaging a specific or wider audience with ICTs, and so on.

Whatever the initial goal to engage, public participation, and e-participation in particular (Millard et al., 2009), requires a change in the way your organization thinks about politics and policy- making and to align them with formal structures and processes. Defining the goal helps setting the project objectives.

PLANNING The PPLC planning phase is very important and should be carefully defined: it clarifies what you want to achieve, who you want to involve, how and when you 2 are doing it and what resources are needed. Public participation requires resources.

Questions to address the planning phase are the following: ▪ What do you want to achieve with the project? ▪ What is the content of public participation? ▪ Who should be involved and by whom? ▪ When and for how long should the public be involved?

13 ▪ Where will you organize your project? ▪ How will people participate? ▪ What are your criteria for success? Some tips to plan your project are the following.

➢ Start planning early ➢ Define your objectives Early planning gives you enough time to consider all the PPLC elements in advance, especially obstacles to overcome for reaching your objectives. You should identify what results you want from your project based on your goals to better choose inputs and activities. Result is a general term for outputs, outcomes and impacts that are predicted by the project objectives.

Objectives are the intended physical, financial, institutional, social, environmental and other development results to which a project or a program is expected to contribute (OECD, 2002). Objectives can be lower-level, mid-level and top-level (Millard et al., 2009). Lower-level objectives relate to the project outputs and are project-specific, usually short-term, and measurable. They provide outputs through the direct inputs of your resources, tools and methods. Mid-level objectives are also project-specific but are designed to provide real benefits for the involved stakeholders (better policy development, policy and decision-making, legislation, etc.): they result from the successful use of participatory tools and methods, and are outputs logically transformed into outcomes. Top-level objectives are goals, the higher-ordered objectives to which the project is intended to contribute. They are beyond the project control and are expressed in terms of ultimate impacts of the project on the system by logically transforming the project outcomes. These potential impacts, to which the previous objectives can contribute, can be viewed from a policy or societal perspective: they are articulated as public policy goals and are largely in relation to public values.

Be realistic when defining your objectives: activities follow the objectives, and what you want to achieve is in terms of results and effects (Millard et al., 2009). Define the objective levels accordingly to the policy-making life cycle and do not forget coherence with the next things to plan.

14

EXTRA: Policy-making Life Cycle. The policy-making life cycle is composed by phases (for instance, Macintosh, 2004; OECD 2013), all involving information gathering and having the potential to be strengthened by ICTs: ▪ Agenda setting (or identification): the need for a policy or for a change is established; the agenda setting defines what the problem to be addressed is and how to proceed. ▪ Analysis: challenges and opportunities associated with an agenda item are defined in order to produce a draft policy document, including gathering evidence and knowldege from various sources (public included), understanding the context, developing options, also in terms of financial costs, benefits and political implications. ▪ Policy Creation: the final decision is taken, ensuring a good worable policy document, involving various mechanism such as formal consultation, risk analysis, pilot studies, implementation plan design. ▪ Implementation: the policy is executed, involving legislation, regulation, guidance and development of a deliveray plan. ▪ Monitoring: advancement and final results of the implementation are monitored, involving evaluation and review of the policy in action with evidences and user views. At the end, the process gets back to phase 1 (e.g. modification based on the experience). Figure 2. Policy-making life cycle.

➢ Outline your stakeholders ➢ Define levels of participation Being a stakeholder generally means having a special interest in the issue, including those who can influence a decision and those who are affected by it. They could be direct or indirect beneficiaries (OECD, 2002) of the policy. Stakeholders usually are agencies, civil society organizations (CVOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), groups or individuals, citizens or general public, business referees, all having a direct or indirect interest in the policy.

Understand what range of interests and knowledge should be represented. Participants could be individuated basing on various criteria, such as particular policy sector, geographical areas, specific subsections of the population, citizenship. Include all perspectives on an issue. Basing on your objectives and resources, be as inclusive as possible. ICTs can help reaching previously

15 excluded populations (disabilities, migrants, aging, minorities, etc.) but they may have special needs the process should be adapted to.

Decision-making already includes decision-makers and experts, such as for instance government ministers and elected representatives, policy-makers, government employees, and technicians and experts of the subjects. Defining the whos means defining not only the public to be engaged but also subjects related to the decision-making and their eventual interaction and reciprocal influence within or outside the project. The role of elected representatives and governments employees in e-engagement initiatives is still an open question (OECD, 2013) and it should be made explicit: they could answer questions and address misconceptions in comment, demonstrating their commitment.

Define how many people should or could participate. Some processes are open but large numbers need to be carefully planned in terms of resources and analysis and could require online tools and platforms. Other processes are only open to institutionally related and pre- selected subjects. Some processes select a new group that might have never worked together before, others select public representatives. Selection procedures could also be defined by representations (organizations or statistical samples).

Participation should not be limited to situations requiring it by law but should be promoted whenever there is public interest (e-participation.eu, 2012). Each phase of the policy-making life cycle could be participatory and involve different subjects involving: business, CSOs, and individuals during the agenda setting; experts, people affected by the policy, staff who will implement and enforce the policy, eventually business, CSOs, and individuals during the analysis; experts, those affected, staff as above, eventually business, CSOs, and individuals when creating the policy; those likely to be affected, staff as above, eventually business, CSOs, and individuals during the implementation; all the subjects above during the monitoring (OECD, 2013).

List potential participants, when possible, and subjects to include for supporting your engagement activities. Consider that if you are successful in reaching and engaging with a wider audience, you will have to copy with the problem of scale, both in terms of technological framework and of inclusion: listening to and responding to every individual is a challenge (OECD, 2013), and you should consequently define method, moderation and analysis. Understanding who your stakeholders are helps to define their skills, knowledge of the contents, accessibility concerns and how to motivate and engage them (OECD, 2013). Online and offline participation requires some similar competencies, for instance related to critical thinking, culture, communication, but also different ones. Skills that are usually needed for participating are related to participatory, political, digital and media literacy. They should be encouraged, designed and supported in terms of acquisition (Millard et al, 2009), alternative tools, compliance with accessibility rules, and communication or literacy activities. ➢ Explore the topic ➢ Outline contents

16 ➢ Start from a public perspective

Your stakeholders are potential participants of your project and become the target group of your communication (and eventually training) plan: understanding their characteristics helps planning communication contents and channels. Contents are needed in every project phase in order to support participation. They are initially defined by its topics and generated by the participants during the process. To better understand what content you need, you could explore the “buzz” (Millard et al., 2009) about the topic in the community through “listening analysis” on social network, fora, public and open (online) debate (always respecting privacy and data), in the news. Carefully analysing the topic helps to understand what inputs are needed from the participants and how to support their contribution. For example, if the process intends to examine one issue or a range of issues, answers about general aspirations are required; if there are available options already, they can be exposed for debate and vote. Sometimes people are more ready to get involved in lighter topics than in more complex issues (e-participation.eu, 2012) but this does not mean that complex topics cannot be introduced for discussion: they require public understanding and interpretation in order to be commented (Macintosh, 2004) and discussed, better communication to create interest, and more extensive explanation and skills to be developed. Linking the project to existing agenda and political decision-making-processes gives the extent to which participants’ inputs have an impact on formal decision-making (Korthagen et al., 2018). It motivates both politicians to consider the results and the public to give their time.

As for ICTs, they have the potential to allow policy-makers to directly reach users and citizens and to involve them earlier in its process but they require specific content management and communication activities. Tailor your approach to fit your target: adapt online consultation to capacities and expectation (language, terminology). Define how much information should be provided to assist individuals to be adequately informed on the issues in order to contribute (OECD, 2013). Defining tutoring for constant support could be really useful.

➢ Define method and rules for participation ➢ Eventually integrate online with offline ➢ Define who does what ➢ Manage disagreement ➢ Establish decision-making Rules for participation are related to what the public can and cannot do during the project. They should consider what personal information should be collected, and how they will be used (Macintosh, 2004). Rules and processes may change for top down or bottom up approaches, but they should always be clear from the beginning and so how feedback is collected and distributed. Rules for participating should ideally be created through inclusion and negotiation.

The method you choose depends on your objectives and stakeholders and defines the set of rules for participation, facilitating and moderating, and its content management and results. Simple consultations are often carried out in form of answers to questionnaires, while community building and a deliberative arena requires group discussion. The method also defines how the

17 topic is analysed (statistical analysis, free agenda, in depth discussion, opinion convergence, etc.). If off-line participatory methods, such us focus group, open space technology, etc., suit your objectives, you could even transpose their structure online with video-platforms, or you could define specific online methods, integrate with text and/or video discussion, evaluation scales and questions, and other tools and media. You could develop hybrid or blended format (Korthagen et al., 2018), having both off and online integrated activities: sometimes an approach based on multiple channels is more successful in reaching and engaging citizens (OECD, 2013). Establishing a method to record disagreement is as important as defining how using and managing it, in terms of mediation, negotiation or consensus building. Include additional time for solving disagreement or consider that sometimes consensus is hard to be reached, even with methods supporting opinion convergence. When you already know that there is no consensus on a policy, some methods (e.g. the Policy Delphi, Turoff, 1970) helps to determine the initial positions on the issue, items with agreement and the unimportant ones to be discarded; then to analyse items exhibiting disagreement, to explore and obtain the reasons for disagreement, their underlying assumptions, and views, or facts that are being used by the individuals to support their positions; and then to evaluate the options again based upon the views of the underlying "evidence" and the assessment of its relevance to each taken position.

How the decision will be taken at the end of the process should be defined now and clarified from the beginning. Define who should decide how the questions are answered and how the answers are integrated into the participatory process, possibly with a steering committee with members representing a range of views and expertise relevant to the purpose of the process. If the decision is not participatory, decision-makers could need time to privately examine policy alternatives and contents: define how they do it and tell the process at the end for transparency (Millard et al., 2009). If decision-making is participatory, other subjects, such as experts could be involved in the process from the beginning or evaluate outputs together with participants and politicians. Decisions should have arguments supporting them, and counter arguments for those who disagree should be given too. Impacts for each decision should be discussed in order to take the decision.

➢ Analyse your technical framework ➢ Improve accessibility ➢ Outline accessibility ➢ Guarantee personal data protection ICTs should be defined to support the whole policy-making life cycle, both front-end (engagement) and back-end, as a holistic view of technology-enabled policy-making (OECD, 2013). Technology can be based on your objectives, stakeholders, topic, method, etc. The project can be totally online/offline, online with traditional communication or offline but having e- channels for information/communication. All should be carefully analysed, also in terms of already available (technological and human) resources and barriers for participants. Defining your technical framework defines your building blocks (Millard et al., 2009), considering what is already available within the organization and what should be sought outside and where,

18 and if the solutions are open source or not. The technical framework could assess how the systems in place respond to the mandate for public online access, what technology is actually used and what is the actual budget for maintenance and sustainability. The sustainability dimension of the process is referred to the digital participation tools, relating to whether or not provisions for the future (maintenance and improvement or expansion of the tool) have been made (Korthagen et al., 2018).

Technology chosen for online engagement vary in their sophistication, from basic email and website, to specialised software to manage deliberation by registered users, including moderation activities (OECD, 2013). Tools have different time-intensity or cost, some may have similar effects with fewer resources. A technical framework considers ICTs systems and tools (such as e-petitions, e-consultations, e-polling, e-decision-making, etc.), new and emerging technologies (e.g. collaborative environments, argumentation support systems, semantic web services, knowledge management and knowledge engineering, Web 2.0, streaming media technologies, natural language processing and data mining, etc.), and also other material and facilities, such as property, infrastructures. If you have more human resources than tools, concentrate your funds on them or externalize on the contrary: be creative with existing tools. Human resources are defined in terms of people and their skills to manage and organize the process. Their assignement should consider the overall time they can dedicate to manage extra projects. If the participatory framework evolves, specific resources can be assigned to a participatory unit. External consultancies can be considered for first or specific activities but planning to develop in-house skill is a plus for building a regular participatory framework. Plan technology for both the participatory process and the communication plan. Information, consultation and participation can all be technology-supported. Some technology-supported information tools are, for instance: search engines, email alerts for new policy issues, translation support, style checkers to remove jargons during the agenda-setting; translation support for ethnic languages and style checkers during analysis; advanced style checking to help interpret technical and legal words during the creation; natural language style checkers during the implementation; online feedback during the monitoring. Some technology-supported consultation tools are, for instance: online surveys and opinion polls, discussion fora, monitoring emails, bulletin boards and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the agenda-setting; ICTs to support the collection of expert statements, evidence-managed facilities, electronic citizen juries, and expert profiling to assist government to know who the experts are during the analysis; discussion fora, online citizen juries, e-community tools for creating and implementing the policy; online surveys and opinion pools, discussion fora, monitoring emails, bulletin boards and FAQs for monitoring. Some technology-supported participation tools are, for instance: e-petitions, e- referenda and e-communities during the agenda setting; e-petitions and e-referenda to amend the policy during the creation; e-communities and electronic citizen juries for the analysis phase; e-mail distribution lists for implementing the policy and e-petitions and e-referenda for monitoring the policy.

19 Platform and tools should be reliable, technically simple and user friendly. Plan how to manage inputs according to the process, and eventually define voting systems. Try to balance the needs for standards and generic interface features with the need to reflect the expectations of a variety of targets (OECD, 2013) and their way of using them. People should not be forced to participate but have the possibility to do it: accessibility means defining access rules, personal information needed, and open/closed procedures. ICTs should also comply with the W3 standards for people with disabilities2. The accessibility dimension also states how many people should be involved and from where (Macintosh 2004), both off and online. Define front-end multichannel to improve accessibility and digital divide, eventually in blended format and considering alternative places for connection, such as kiosks, cyber-cafes, community centers, other platforms (OECD, 2013), together with mobile ones. Easy and flexible navigation should be supported, especially through complex policy issues. You can eventually consider the use of traditional methods in association with online consultations (e.g. public roundtables plus dedicated websites).

Personal data protection should be guaranteed, especially in online consultation: its implications vary in accordance with data collection, e.g. anonymous, online registration, password access, etc. A privacy statement should be defined in advance. Your technical framework changes your privacy statement and rules. Try to balance the need for anonymous access with the need to collect personal data for various reasons (e.g. authentication, evaluation) and the rights of access, protection of privacy and security with transparency, accountability and trust (OECD, 2013).

2 https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

20 EXTRA: Main types of electronic platforms. Some e-participatory systems can be integrated with other tools, such as the multimedia improving effectiveness (with e-budgeting or e-citizen juries). Some are (for instance, Korthagen et al., 2018; Macintosh, 2004): ➢ E-consultation: formats are various (from simple questionnaire to open formats and crowdsourcing). Topics should not be too broad and output too general. Well-designed e- consultation processes should be transparent in processing, also by clearifying how inputs are integrated into decision-making: projects are too often not really participatory, especially when they simply aim at informing about already taken decisions. ➢ E-petition and e-referenda: they are quite successful, improve e-empowerment and are two of the potential mechanisms for gathering citizen opinions and comments to influence policies. They require civic knowledge and skills from the public. The online version does not really boost their use or transparency, especially when cooperation with institutions, organizational reforms and technological modernization lack. ➢ e-deliberation: these systems allow anonymity, exchange of ideas with no influence and can be cost-effective. They need moderation and structure and a balance between inclusion, quality and impact on deliberation, and become more difficult to manage with high complexity and need of expertise. They can be combined with offline events, and should aim at developing collective intelligence. They can be in form of e-fora and/or be integrated with other tools and methods. ➢ E-fora: they usually are issue-based or policy-based. Issue-based fora are organized around policy issues formulated by policy-makers, interests groups or experts and are heading of one or more discussion threads. Responses are opinions or ideas. Policy-based fora are organized around themes/issues related to a draft policy, discussion threads solicits responses by those affected in terms of alternative ideas and suggestions, eventual agreement is mostly seeked. They do not necessarily aim at e-deliberation. ➢ E-budgeting: they are spreading and have produced good results in influencing decision-making in terms of transparency, improved public services, accelerated administrative operations, better cooperation among public administration units, enhanced responsiveness, political culture, better quality of decision; they have less impacts on cost-reduction and major structural reforms. ➢ E-voting: several challenges persist, especially for election. Further development are still needed with regard to technical aspects, legal frameworks, security, transparency, verifiability, oversight and accountability, and user friendliness or trusts. ➢ E-communities and social media: they are playing an increasingly important role in civic and political life, being from the society or from the politicians. Social media challenge the public sphere, even if effects on mobilizations are often not medium-specific. Considering an integrated anaylis of the interrelations between traditional media, digital media and the public could be informative. The development of ‘online communities’ of interest, in which specific policy issues are debated and alternative proposals formulated, sometimes in form of e-fora, are examples of online empowerment.

➢ Define overall duration and for each activity ➢ Define your communication plan The dimension related to the process duration and sustainability defines for what period of time the initiative lasts (Macintosh, 2004) that is the overall project and its specific phases. This timeframe is usually composed by a beginning phase (reaching the target), a central phase (main participation) and an ending phase.

21 The central phase, where the core of your participatory project happens, needs a specific timeframe for itself, with certain begin and end dates. Duration should be adequate for responses (from few weeks to months based on method and tools). Try not to go too far but give enough time for responses. ICTs and participatory platforms can speed the process up in many cases. Consider the background, define if the project is a pilot experience, one of a series, a regular exercise.

The dates of your project and its phases should be clearly communicated from the beginning. Feedback should always be allowed. Your communication plan should be planned in accordance with your project phases.

➢ Define the criteria for your success ➢ Define potential obstacles and opportunities ➢ Define your evaluation plan The criteria for your project success follows your objectives. In order to reach them, the planning phase should define what critical factors could affect the project elements. Most success comes when the expectations of participants are outlined from the beginning, including purpose, means, processing of outputs and outcomes (Millard et al., 2009): objectives should be clear from the outset, the project procedures should be understood in a transparent way to avoid abandon, and who is accountable for what should be made clear to increase transparency.

Factors of success can be defined within the political, legal, cultural, economic and technological frameworks. Some criteria for having a project success have proven to be the following (Millard et al., 2009): clear purpose and expectations; transparent, open, negotiable process and outcomes; political support; understandable language and words; people listening and possibility to express; timing and early involvement; feedback and inputs during the process; planning of input collection, analysis and use; independent and trustworthy moderation with transparent guidelines; clear, and transparent rules and accountability; different tools and process; a rationale for the final decision; an evaluation plan; independent monitoring to ensure balance and minimise mis-use; a citizen-centric approach for technology and channels matching; privacy-enhancing tools; quality of online environments and contents, relevance and easy-to- use; feedback processing and visibility.

Try to define what factors could change during the process and what could not before starting. Understanding your factors of reference actually helps to define if prior activities are needed (such as seminars, for instance, or motivation of the political level). They are directly connected to the evaluation phase and to be planned in advance: they give some background as to why the initiative achieved what it did and to record what the team would do differently (Macintosh, 2004).

22 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION Communication is an overall process and should be planned for each step of the 3 project. It is the interface for citizen engagement, access and feedback, it refers to all the information and communication activities needed before, during and after the project, and supports citizen needs all the way. Mobilisation is one of the greater challenges of participatory projects in general (Korthagen et al., 2018), and the communication plan can make the difference.

In order to plan the activities related to communication, some questions to ask yourself are: ➢ What are your current communication channels and resources? ➢ Why do you want to communicate? ➢ How can the target group be reached? ➢ What contents should you give? ➢ How will you communicate the final decision and the project results? Some tips for planning communication are the following:

➢ Analyse your communication framework ➢ Understand your communication objectives ➢ Plan communication for each phase ➢ Consider a project brand Defining your communication framework means understanding what is already ongoing within your organization in terms of online and offline information and communication channels, activities and overall strategy to strengthen your relations with citizens. Involve other units and integrate activities and plans where possible: plan the project communication in accordance with the communication strategy of your organization. Keep other members of the organization and the public constantly updated, it means creating a participatory environment, both off and online. Communication can be external and internal on the basis of your project objectives, contents, subjects, phase, desired outcomes and so on. Defining communication activities beyond the project itself for keeping people informed and stimulating further participation is important and should consider the whole policy-making life cycle when related to policies, that is why inserting your project communication plan within the overall communication strategy of your organization could maximise its results.

Understand your communication objectives and plan activities accordingly. You can implement plans both for internal and external communication and for their evaluation. An internal communication plan would help to coordinate your human resources and activities and to keep your organization informed and involved in the process. External communication is addressed to specific target groups in order to engage and to disseminate the project in general. Communication activities and contents follow your project specific phases. The launch should give enough time to familiarize with the topic, the background information and the

23 system/tools/process: avoid creating false expectations and provide full information related to why you aim at stimulating participation. Communication during the participatory phase should aim at informing about the raw results and at eventually stimulating wider engagement and feedback. Do not forget your participants at the end of the project: feedback is fundamental, even if the message is that the participants’ input is not going to be used, as it increases the democratic value of your project, and implies that the organisation knows what it is doing with and why (Korthagen t al., 2018). Define how disseminating the results and decisions in advance. Consider potential questions and answers from/to the public, and personal feedback to avoid conflicts. Be prepared to communicate over a period of time with people who have different opinions.

You could improve the project visibility by defining a project brand for communication activities, in order to stimulate identification. If the project is inserted within a participatory strategy, the brand should be defined within it and connected to other projects and services. An overall participatory brand for the organization could be a plus for maximizing effects when strengthening relations. ➢ Work on different contents ➢ Be clear and understandable Different objectives and target groups need different contents. Each communication phase has specific contents to be communicated. Main types to consider are, for instance, related to the project and its visibility for engagement, to facilitate participation and access, to the topic, and to its ongoing and final results. Keywords for information and communication contents are clearness, simplicity, concreteness, brevity. You should aim at maximising engagement: clearly state your project objectives and access rules. Present objectives in brief, clear terms, and with right slogans. Be clear on what kind of input is requested. Information about how to take part and have feedback should always be present. People taking part in the process should know in advance how the contents they generate are used.

Give information about the topic, not only about the project: collect official and project documents/multimedia before the project starts, and elaborate them in an understandable format. Process documents and data should support the process: you may use a list of open materials, data and database to increase transparency and generate new solutions. Other informative documents, such as participatory guidelines, handbooks, cases, etc., could improve participatory literacy. Do not forget to include contact details and website address in every material.

You should provide information and access to governmental documents but check for clarity and understanding and improve it (OECD, 2013): avoid jargons and legalistic terms and define a glossary section/document and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that help keeping track of responses; consider language translation, useful for different countries or people with different backgrounds; use your target language; style-check; help to visualize complex information; use graphics to increase understanding of the topic and the process. Make information attractive if you want to engage.

24 Communicate results, in forms of reports for instance, and consider requests for further clarification, with detailed explanation of why all options could not be taken into consideration. Expose all options. Communicate arguments for the decision but also counter arguments for those who disagree. Make failures, motivations and results public.

➢ Integrate off and online ➢ Choose specific channels and format for each target ➢ Implement a web point of reference ➢ Appoint who represent the local government ➢ Define how treating traditional media ➢ Use social media more broadly There is a variety of possibilities for disseminating contents in terms of format and channels, both digital and analogic. You should define a comprehensive information and communication plan by considering integration of online and offline channels and activities, traditional and new media. Different purposes, targets and contents need different channels and formats. Communication tools should be selected and adapted to the public: plan different channels according to your target characteristics and skills in order to effectively reach them. For a high diversity of participants, you could define an offline communication strategy as well (Korthagen et al., 2018): integrated both traditional and ICTs tools could boost effectiveness and meet target and project needs. Tools should be selected on the basis of available resources (equipment, people, and budget) and fit with public and staff. Consider how to present understandable information and easy to manage online tools. Carefully evaluate the amount of time your human resources can spend on the project in relation to their daily work. Channels influence formats. Main channels can be off and online and refer to the internet, as with websites and portals, to traditional (such as newspaper) and digital media (such as social networks). You should define a range of options through which citizens may provide feedback (OECD, 2013), both off and online. Feedback should be given both with synchronous (i.e. chat, telephone) and asynchronous (i.e. e-mail, fora, forms) channels.

Define a project website/portal or space on your website for your materials, with a specific area for information and download: define a clear site structure and links for in-depth study; consider search optimization for your website; link the project to formal existing agenda-setting processes and policy or political decision-making. Consider Natural Language Processing (NLP) to help with different languages and style checking, in order to identify “strange” words and expressions, readability measures and to markup important and difficult expressions. The UNL (Universal Networking Language) is a language that enables communication among people with differing native languages (OECD, 2013).

Some useful formats are posters, exhibitions, printed and digital brochures/leaflets, news, leaflets, stickers, “tell-a-friend” e-postcards or paper postcards, clickable logos (OECD, 2013). Be creative. Graphics is important. ICTs and multimedia can help improving your communication: more interaction, as with tools such as collaborative mapping, real time

25 disasters, hazard maps, feedback on public services and other applications in combination with GIS (Global Information System) and mobile technologies (Le Blanc, 2005), means sometimes more participation and heads towards collective intelligence platform. Consider that within your participatory long-term strategy. Technology needs e-enabling and attention to privacy and access, especially when using private platforms.

You may consider improving dissemination with interactive online promotion (Macintosh, 2004), through advertising and clickable banners, and so on, or offline traditional media. Materials can be also disseminated in traditional, official or unofficial, venues. From a mass media perspective (newspaper, TV and radio) media-hosted sites are primarily used to acquire grassroots opinion of the issue (Millard et al., 2009) during the exploratory phase and to disseminate project launch and results. You can guarantee full-news media coverage, if needed for reaching the targets, at various levels (from local to national level) and moments of the process.

Define events, such as press conferences, workshops, seminars, café, etc., related to the project phases (especially for launches and closing), plan them accordingly with the target and integrate editorial calendars of website, social media, and traditional media. Leadership commitment can make the difference. Define who represents the government, especially for traditional media and events, and keep them informed. Governments could also directly invite specific stakeholders.

The department of public relations should coordinate media events: all messages should be previously discussed and avoid contradiction with the messages sent by the organization through different official channels. Press conferences and releases, traditional or online, news broadcast, interviews for promotion and similar can help to increase your communication impacts, giving clear evidence of the importance given to the process. Social media are an excellent, quick and flexible, platform for communication but they need to be carefully managed and are time consuming. Social media must be overseen, animated and constantly updated and answered because they are faster than traditional channels: people expect a fast two-way communication, and up-to-date contents. Define an editorial calendar for them in integration with the website and other channels/events related to the project main phases. There are various social media and they can reach different targets. Social media identities can be of the project, of the office, of the organization, and of the policy-makers and human resources supporting the process through their personal (social) accounts. It would be ideal to define a set of rules for the organization on how to use social media, and to appoint a referee who constantly updates and animate official accounts during the project. Social networks are sometimes main channels for e-participatory projects: rules should be also defined for how using and elaborating their data, both for communication and for participation. You could involve stakeholders, CSOs, NGOs, external partners to support the initiative by relaunching the communication contents on their channels (websites and social media) and for raising awareness.

➢ Consider accessibility

26 Information and communication activities should facilitate access and improve accessibility. Accessing information and contents is a basic condition for developing e-participation. Try to understand how information, in terms of documents, materials, and process info, can reach the target, and how they improve participation. When talking about online information and communication, you should give a real possibility to electronically consult and acquire government information: accessibility means ease when consulting and has specific characteristics, such as recognisability and localizability, availability, manageability, affordability, reliability, clarity and attention to special needs (OECD, 2013). ICTs and multimedia should provide relevant information in a format that is both more accessible and more understandable (Macintosh, 2004). E-enabling also links to the channels, and they allow for continuous interaction.

ACTION

4 After a careful planning of our project and its activities, both project specific and related to information and communication, you should be ready to launch your project through your communication plan. In order to be sure, ask yourself the following questions:

➢ Are you actually ready to begin? ➢ Are the officials participating in the process ready? ➢ Which additional activities should be foreseen? And after the launch of the initiative, ask yourself:

➢ Is the communication plan working? ➢ Are you constantly updating? ➢ Are you giving feedback? Here are some tips to answer the questions.

➢ Appoint a constantly available referee ➢ Create a simple system of notification ➢ Run your tests ➢ Collect authorization to data treatment

Test and adapt your ICTs tools and platforms, such as websites accessibility and navigation, inputs and voting forms, before the project starts: check if they are working properly, and eventually adapt it basing on feedback. Test the communication plan on different groups before launching the campaign as well and eventually adapt. Define someone in charge of carefully overseeing the ongoing process: this person should be constantly available for coordinating feedback and information update, and check if referees are

27 properly executing their tasks and need support. You could create a system of notification for updates in each channel in order to have notification of new data/activities. Before starting, collect authorization models to data treatment in advance. Advise your human resources, and especially decision-makers, on the project launch: be sure that everybody knows what to do and when.

If everything is in place and you have followed questions and tips and feel ready, get the process started: it is time to act! ➢ Be flexible and creative ➢ Watch timing ➢ Constantly update materials ➢ Carefully moderate

Watch and respect the project timing and plan, but be ready for some concessions and changes to the initial plan, especially for solving unforeseen problems, managing disagreement or potential changes within the organization. Rules and scheduling are important but flexibility and creativity are too and initial plans could change, especially to manage disagreement, inadequate communication, or change in human resources or decision-makers. Your communication impact should be evaluated during the overall process in order to define adjustments in channels and contents. Changes should not affect the results, though.

Information access is a basic condition for participation: constantly update the list of documents and data on your web point. Check your ICTs and contribution for ongoing evaluation, and give feedback to clarify how using public contribution. Give information in terms of participation and raw results, in order to further stimulate engagement. Use reports on what has been done and what is left to be done. Include comments, active links, etc. Do not forget to inform policy and decision-makers and your organization as well, keep involving them and the public. If you defined an ongoing evaluation plan, you should collect and analyse data during the process, eventually adjusting activities on this base.

Moderation, when needed, is a very important part of your project. Follow your method rules for moderation and facilitation, and remember that online and offline interactions are different. Frame the debate during the process (Millard et al., 2009) if there is one in your project: balance simplicity and leverage with nuance and the need to compromise. Carefully manage inputs from participants, in terms of quantity, format, and size. A balanced frame means keeping open to alternatives and contradictory evidence. Make people feel confident to express, even considering anonymity: protect identities, especially of vulnerable individuals in sensitive situations. Manage leadership effects, dominant people and shy talkers. Equally empower all participants: make people be active in the process, think how they wish to express their opinions. Balance different interests. Tackle shouting and trivialisation, avoid false polarisation, which occurs when single issues supporters do not listen to each other, focus on honest disagreement. Allow time to reflect and change ideas. Increase satisfaction and ownership and facilitate connection to wider processes: develop a sense of interdependency or community, also by having decision makers from government, business, and other authorities interact with people

28 affected by their decisions. Insist on clearly stated conclusions for the results. Use your established method to record and use disagreement. Participation requires accounting and transparency, particularly with decision-making: increasing level of engagement asks for sharing powers and this means taking citizen input very seriously (Millard et al., 2009).

➢ Thank people ➢ Always give feedback Thank participants for their input and who supports your project, especially when it ends. Do not neglect people when there is the final result, to be communicated after the evaluation phase. Be prepared for criticism. The final conclusion and feedback should be easily found and usable online, e.g. in the defined space for data and documents, the specific participatory (project) pages/websites, etc. Do not forget to update them.

Communication means the possibility to give feedback: it relates to the trust participants have in the process and the political system (Korthagen et al., 2018). Be ready to manage it in every phase and after the project through the channels you defined for supporting the public and media: they include all the people who want to know about your activities.

EVALUATION We did it! We developed our participatory process. It is now time to take the decision related to the process, evaluate the overall project outputs and 5 outcomes and give feedback to the participants.

Some questions you should ask yourself are:

➢ Has the initial plan been realised? ➢ What are outputs and outcomes of the process? ➢ Were the communication plan and technology effective? ➢ Are people satisfied? ➢ Were the contributions relevant and influential? ➢ How to improve the process? In order to answer to those questions, execute your evaluation plan by considering the following tips:

➢ Consider what evaluating means ➢ Assess outputs and outcomes Questions you could ask yourself to understand if the project worked can vary if related to different perspectives (Macintosh and Whyte, 2003; 2006; 2008), such as political (Was the e- engagement effective in contributing to the decision-making process, and did it do so transparently? Did it engage the community affected? Were their contributions relevant to the policy topic, and were they informed contributions? How were conflicts handled and consensus

29 reached? How were the contributions responded to? To what extent did they affect policy?), technical (To what extent did the design of the ICTs directly contribute to the e-participation outcomes?), and social perspective (How were the outcomes related to the e-participation process, how effectively did it enable those targeted to accomplish what they wanted, what circumstances helped or hindered them to realistically contribute, and were others excluded who should have been included?).

You can also specifically concentrate on technology assessment, especially for e-participatory projects, in relation to “Four Is” (Anttiroiko, 2003): Institutions (To what extent are the ICT-based citizen-centered solutions and applications integrated in the practices of existing political institutions and how do they affect actual decision-making processes?); Influence (Are the e- democracy experiments or practices such that people involved may truly influence the issues of interest?); Integration (Is the potential of technology used optimally in integrating the basic elements of the entire e-democratic process, including agenda-setting, planning, preparation, decision-making, implementation, evaluation, and control?); Interaction (Is the potential of technology in disseminating information, facilitating, interaction, and conducting political transactions used so as to increase the transparency, efficiency, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and inclusiveness of a democratic system?). Technical questions can be also posed in relation to the methods chosen and to its rules, affecting the outputs.

In order to address all these questions, evaluation criteria should be defined, eventually on a layered e-participation evaluation overlapping democratic, project and socio-technical perspectives with increasing focus on what to evaluate (Macintosh and White, 2008). The democratic perspective considers the overarching democratic criteria addressed by the initiatives that is to what extent participation affects policy: criteria are representation, engagement, transparency, conflict and consensus, political quality, community control. The project perspective analyses it in detail by considering goals and objectives set by the project stakeholders: criteria are engaging with a wider audience, obtaining better informed opinions, enabling more in-depth consultation, cost effective analysis of contributions, providing feedback to citizens. The socio-technical perspective considers to what extent the design of the ICTs has affected the outcomes: criteria are social acceptability (trust and security, relevance and legitimacy), usefulness (accessibility, appeal, content clarity, and responsiveness), and usability (navigation and organization, efficiency and flexibility, error recovery). Such a layer can be also redefined within an overall framework for evaluating that distinguishes between internal project components and external moderators and between front and back regions of e-participation from a governance perspective (Smiths et al., 2011). This framework is composed of a three-layered impact assessment including outputs, outcomes and impacts and employs the notion of an intervention logic specifying types of actions necessary to initiate and manage participation processes. The multi-layered and bounded character of the framework allows to consider links to high-level policy goals, cultural factors and long-term impacts. In order to evaluate your project, you should hence identify the results given by your project inputs and activities and assess if you have positive results. Your inputs, that are the financial, human, and material resources used for the project development, carry out activities, that are

30 the actions taken or work performed, and they produce specific outputs, that are products, goods, services, etc. resulting from the project (OECD, 2002).

Outputs generated by the project are something immediate, tangible, and measurable and strictly related to the process: they help controlling the process performance and are products of the process, such as events, objects, state of being, contents, set of actions, votes, reports, participants, trained people, proposed items for the agenda setting, influenced policies, etc. They are immediately measurable by indicators of statement. Outputs can be generally connected to lower-level objectives: they influence how to manage the contents and should be considered in comparison to that. They should also be evaluated in comparison to your main goals that are related to the reasons underneath a participatory framework for public organizations.

Outcomes are short to mid-long term effects of the project outputs: they are what the process produces, the ways the process turns out, its consequences, what it leads to in terms of change, as, for instance, affected policy development and decision-making, more fulfilling participation, etc. Something can sometimes be both an output and outcome, basing on different perspectives. Outcomes can be given by outputs but also be influenced by other factors or unforeseen events that are out of control, and they can be defined at different levels. Outcomes can be related to mid-level objectives, and can be projects related benefits for the stakeholders (Smiths et al., 2011).

Both outcomes and outputs can or cannot give specific impacts. Impacts are positive and negative, primary and secondary, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended effects produced by the project (OECD, 2002). They are the way change is measured by specific indicators within a mid-long term framework. They can be related to your project goals, and expressed in terms of ultimate impacts, societal objectives/public values to which successful participation contributes, as, for instance, civic trust, empowerment and innovation (Smiths et al., 2011).

Reaching those results is influenced by external factors that are related to the environment within which a project takes place and are beyond immediate control of the project (Smiths et al., 2011). They can act as drivers and barriers at each level. Output, outcomes and impacts are related in a hierarchical way, each contributes to the level above, to be considered when evaluating. External factors can be grouped into categories, such as structure of the governance regime, political culture, legal and policy environment, technological infrastructure, socio-economic and cultural environment and patterns of interest intermediation, be at the top, middle or base level and assessed within your framework analysis.

Governments need tools, information and capacity to evaluate their performance in participatory projects, in order to adapt their policy-making to new requirements and changing (Gramberger, 2001). Evaluation means understanding what has or has not been achieved, what problems encountered, how the target group was reached, what level of satisfaction, what impact on decision, what worked, when and why: it is a systematic and objective assessment of an on- going or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results (OECD, 2002). A project is the individual development of interventions designed to achieve specific objectives within specific resources and implementation schedules, and hopefully within the

31 framework of a broader programme or strategy. A process is the internal dynamics of implementing organizations, their policy instruments, and their delivery mechanism for services, their management practices, and the linkages among these. A programme is a set of interventions, arranged for specific global, regional, country, or sector development objectives. Evaluation is needed in order to determine the relevance and fulfilment of objectives and related outputs, outcomes and impacts, and to consider the project efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and improvement. Evaluation can be ex-ante, ongoing and ex-post, similarly to policy-making life cycle evaluation. It can be internal, within the organization, or external, for instance when laws require for independent evaluators. A participatory evaluation can be also run, with representatives of agencies and stakeholders, including beneficiaries, working together in designing, carrying out and interpreting evaluation (OECD, 2002).

➢ Define your criteria for evaluation ➢ Collect data and contents for analysis ➢ Engage citizens in evaluation In order to define your project outputs, you should collect political, technical, social and communicational data that could be considered in relation to the operational outputs of your project (produced tools, methods, changes or operation).

Operational outputs (Smiths et al., 2011) to consider are working and available hardware, software and application (technical design elements, tool categories, channels used), organizational outputs (access and use of the digital infrastructure, ICTs working procedures and workflows, trained personnel, involvement of all actors/stakeholders), and process outputs (including implementation of awareness raising campaigns, linked events, data formatted for end-users). Data collected or to be collected through the information sources of your evaluation plan can be qualitative and quantitative, and generally analysed by quantitative and qualitative aggregation, for instance, certain threshold of voting on or signing for proposals or to priorities individual proposals or decide on elections/referenda (Korthagen et al., 2018), or by disaggregation for specific item.

The use of closed or multiple choice questions and of Likert scales for questionnaire and surveys, for instance, allow for automatic processing. Free text replies require a far greater investment in human resources (OECD 2013). Contributions can be classified according to whether they provide information, ask questions or make suggestions. Content analysis involves both quantitative and qualitative methods and can be used to summarise comments made in discussion fora. A “thread” analysis can help to assess to what extent particular topics have attracted in-depth discussion (quality of deliberation), the number of comments posted per thread, the average and total word count per thread, thread depth (i.e. the number of levels of reply) and thread length (e.g. length of time between first and last contribution). The values of these figures give an indication of which issues the participants have been stimulated by, and on which they had most to say about. When there is a large number of responses this can also help to draw attention to potentially significant areas of the debate (OECD 2013). Contributes can be summarised in substance to identify participants’ concerns, level of support to any draft proposal, suggestions for action to address problems, etc. The quality of deliberation can be

32 analysed in terms of how people identify themselves, how they use their claimed identity to justify what they say, how they support their arguments by referring to background information or by responding to other participants comments (OECD, 2013). If you have applied a specific method of structured communication (such as, the delphi-like, for instance), data and analysis of contribution will depend on its rules.

ICTs evaluation can consider navigation and organisation, efficiency and flexibility, error recovery, numbers of people accessing the platform or voting, accessed documents, feedback requests (and other statistics gathered by the tools and in web server log files), etc. ICTs can be evaluated in terms of accessibility, appeal, content clarity, responsiveness, usability. This evaluation could also help to assess the communicational perspective, together with press reviews, number of website visits, sharing of post and articles, and so on.

You can also develop specific data collection activities, such as questionnaire, interviews, field test (of tools, for instance) and field observation, webs surveys, focus groups, discussion fora, live chats, experts opinions, etc., to collect more data to evaluate also in terms of satisfaction. Asking for feedback to the participants on various areas help to better evaluate your project components and improve your next activities/project, especially if you ask for ideas and suggestions for further participatory processes. You can collect various actors’ evaluations on the process, such as officials, participants, elected representatives, other representatives, project managers and technologists and so on. People should be satisfied with the process, and also with the results, even if there is disagreement.

Combining methods and data for evaluation ensures evidence of what people do with participatory tools and on how the experience was: it helps maximising the validity of the research results by providing for triangulation of the methods and/or the data (Macintosh and Whyte, 2006).

➢ Discuss the impact of each decision ➢ Take a decision and deliver what you promised ➢ Be honest and critical in evaluating ➢ Give feedback The best techniques produce fraudulent results if hidden agendas are allowed to circumvent genuine discussion (Glenn, 2009). The way you defined how to take decision influences your evaluation. When taking the final decision in front of different opinions, impacts of each should be discussed, even in a participatory way. Participation cannot lead to indecision (e- participation.eu, 2012): focus on the main goal, deliver what you promised (Gramberger, 2001).

Your analysis should be reliable, that means consistency or dependency of data and evaluation judgements, with reference to the quality of the instruments, procedures, and analyses used to collect and interpret evaluation data (OECD, 2002). Be honest and critical in assessing the initial plan, the actions taken and the outcome. Learning from experience by evaluating and sharing the results enables comparison with activities and good practices, improves further planning,

33 and raises awareness. Evaluate the overall process (from planning to evaluation) and redesign new activities on this base.

Integrity of the overall process is fundamental: ensuring it is one of the most difficult and sensitive question of your project. If the process is manipulated to force a previously decided conclusion, then participants will feel used and betrayed and conflict could follow. The initiators of the process should be interested in the whole picture, not just a part, they should earn a reputation of being fair and impartial in treatment or judgement. The integrity of the coordinator of the process is even more important than the initiator's and it is defined as the “willingness to involve the full range of views and to allow the process to determine its own direction toward the purpose” (Glenn, 2009).

The conclusion of the project points out its factors of success and failure, by giving attention to intended and unintended results and impacts and to any other strengthen and weakness (OECD, 2002), and data and analysis compose your project report. The dissemination of findings generated through the evaluation process to facilitate learning to parties for whom is relevant and useful defines your feedback (OECD, 2002). Publish the results of participatory processes as soon as possible and inform about the next steps in policy-making and decisions (OECD, 2013).

➢ Analyse outcomes and impacts over time Outputs from participatory activities should be processed in relation to the policy lifecycle and may include a number of organizational changes in processes, such as sharing of information, partnership with the public, redevelopment of business models, training, awareness raising, financial planning, foresight and scenario development, research, leadership and political commitment, and so on (Smiths et al., 2011). The potential impacts or general objectives of e-participation can be viewed from either a policy or a societal perspective. The objectives are not specific to participation but articulated as ‘public value’ impacts to which participation specific objectives can contribute. Consider the potential implications of your initiative in relation to social norms and expectations about legitimate forms of political participation and representation, modes of collective identification, modalities of technology use and types of knowledge production (Smiths et al., 2011).

34

PARTICIPANTS ______

Italian members

Francesco Alimena Francesco Iury Forte Selenia Anastasi Sara Galentino Massimiliano Avino Luca Gariselli Domenico Barbato Piero Graziano Alessandro Barrella Gennaro Grieco Francesca Bertin Carmela Incarnato Daniele Biolo Xhorxhi Kaci Francesca Calabrese Luca Marano Marco Cattaneo Luca Marino Simone Chianese Alessandro Mazzi Anna Maria Colacori Maria Pia Napoletano Francesco Maria Colurcio Aleksandra Osmani Giovanni Conelli Emma Pagliarusco Alessandro Crisci Domiziana Palumbo Ylenia De Ricciardis Clarissa Pandino Amleto De Vito Andrea Paone Domenico Di Bona Roberta Rombolà Marika Di Bona Giuseppe Sanchez Vladimir Di Costanzo Salvatore Sannino Ludovico Di Monaco Vincenzo Santonocito Alma Fabris Chiara Scialdone Stefano Falchi Marco Siragusa Vincenzo Fatigati Sara Squadrani Bruno Formicola Giuseppina Tommasino Darerca Tupponi Maiva Vercoutere

35

Albanian Delegation

Diego Abedinaj Kejtjana Kazani Gladiola Ago Klajdi Kaziu Sabina Babameto Enrik Keco Loriana Bara Maringlen Kurtaj Ina Begotaraj Klaudio Leçini Rexhino Biba Neada Muçaj Vilson Blloshmi Omejna Murati Brunilda Brati Erind Mustafaraj Gojart Bushi Kledian Myftari Admirim Dafku Doris Pasha Edona Daçi Eltjana Plaku Arbër Delilaj Iva Plaushku Mevi Dibra Dritan Sakuta Igli Domi Have Shabani Shejla Domnori Ina Shenplaku Jola Frasheri Jozef Shkambi Rikela Fusha Migel Shuhu Irsid Gjondedaj Bleona Sino Armino Halla Kladiola Spahiu Dorisjana Hasani Endri Tahiri Loreta Isaraj Haxhire Vezi Petro Jaho Klea Xhaferi Elona Karaj Ina Xhakolli Jetnor Kasmi Elmaz Xhameta Ilenia Kaso Kejsi Ziu

36 SWOT analysis - Napoli

E-democracy and municipal policies

SWOT analysis - Napoli Overview

SWOT analysis - Napoli Strenghts

1 Local identity and sense of belonging that helps social cohesion 2 Social network communication of some public authorities Urban planning department and Youth policy department Online Booking service of some institutions (e.g., Post Office,INPS, Agenzie delle entrate...) Awareness campaign on themes connected to electoral participation (European election) and democratic principles App for public transport 3 Common Goods Facebok groups on local municipalities and neighborhoods: citizien and politicians get closer Facebook groups on some social specific themes (toxic waste, pollution, toxic fires, illegal waste disposal) Social reuse of abandoned assets and confiscated assets

SWOT analysis - Napoli Weaknesses

1 Structural infrastructural problems No Wi-Fi connection in some area, slow internet connection in private and public space Absence of a strong public Wi-Fi connection

2 General digital illiteracy Lack of a qualified digital staff on public offices Communication delays via internet between citiziens and public administration Structure of online forum outdated and non democratic

SWOT analysis - Napoli Opportunities

1 Crowdfunding practice focused on some districts and neighborhoods (ArtBonus-model) 2 Participatory budgeting (e.g. CitizienLab) 3 Awarness Campaign using new social media tools, and different influencers

4 Social reuse of abandoned assets using the collective partecipatory via platforms of digital democracy

SWOT analysis - Napoli Threats

1 Lobbying of some political groups 2 Non profitable investments, i.e. poor marketing strategy (influencers) and expensive tools for e-democracy

SWOT analysis - Napoli SWOT ANALISYS

C A S E S T U D Y

MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA https://tirana.al/

T.A.K.E Part S/Strengths

THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST MUNICIPALITIES IN ALBANIA. AS SUCH, THE MUNICIPALITY INCORPORATES IN ITS EVERYDAY ACTIVITY THE THREE COMPONENTS OF E - DEMOCRACY. SPECIFICALLY, BASED ON THE ONLINE SERVICES PUBLISHED AT THE MUNICIPALITY’S WEBSITE ( HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/ ) , THE BIGGEST STRENGTHS IT MAINLY RELIES UPON A R E E - INFORMATION, E - CONSULTATION AND E - PARTICIPATION (I.E., E - DECISION - MAKING). THE MAIN STRENGTHS RESULTING FROM THE USE OF E - DEMOCRACY BY THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA ARE LISTED AS BELOW:

T.A.K.E Part S/Strengths

E CONSULTATION E – INFORMATION: And Newsletter from the Mayor

Open Data Portal APPS in Tirana (https://opendata.tirana.al/) (https://tirana.al/aplikacione)

Using the e-Albania portal E – DECISION MAKING (https://e-albania.al/)

T.A.K.E Part S! E Information

IT HAS BUILT AN EASILY ACCESSIBLE OFFICIAL WEBSITE TO GUARANTEE Q U A L I T Y SERVICES BASED ON A REAL - NEED STUDY OF THE CITIZENS, DIVIDED IN S P E C I F I C CATEGORIES (TERRITORY PLANNING, HOUSING, CIVIL REGISTRY OFFICES, C U L T U R E , PROPERTY INFORMATION, TRANSPORT, LOCAL TAXES, ETC.)

THE MUNICIPALITY PROVIDES INFORMATION ON THE RECRUITMENT PROCEDU R E S F O R EMPLOYMENT OR INTERNSHIPS FOR THE INTERESTED CANDIDATES, USING TRANSPARENT AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE METHODS; THE MUNICIPALITY REGULARLY PUBLISHES ONLINE RELEVANT PIECES OF LEGISLATION, ORDERS BY THE MAYOR AND/OR OF THE LOCAL COUNCIL, DE C I S I O N S , ETC.

THE MUNICIPALITY ALSO PROVIDES DETAILED INFORMATION ON HOW TO AT T E N D T H E CITY’S NUMEROUS CULTURAL EVENTS, AND TIPS FOR TOURISTS ON HOW TO E X P L O R E TIRANA/TOURIST ATTRACTIONS, ETC.

THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA POSSESSES SUFFICIENT FINANCIAL AND HU M A N RESOURCES TO MAKE ACCESS TO SERVICES EASIER FOR CITIZENS OF TIRA N A , W H O CANNOT RECEIVE INFORMATION ON THE SERVICES PROVIDED AND/OR THE L O C A L LEGISLATION IN PLACE, THROUGH OTHER COMMUNICATION MEANS.

THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA HAS THE POTENTIAL TO ATTRACT NEW FORE I G N INVESTMENTS IN TIRANA THROUGH PROMOTING THE CITY’S VALUES ONLINE ( E . G . HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/PIKAT - E - INTERESIT/ATRAKSIONE - NE- TIRANE ).

T.A.K.E Part S! E Information Open Data Portal

OPEN DATA PORTAL ( HTTPS://OPENDATA.TIRANA.AL/ )

SINCE APRIL 19, 2017, THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA, WITH THE SUPPO R T O F UNDP, BECAME THE FIRST MUNICIPALITY IN ALBANIA TO CREATE THE OPE N DATA PORTAL. THE PORTAL IS ORGANIZED INTO 9 MAIN CATEGORIES. EAC H CATEGORY IS DIVIDED INTO SEVERAL SUBCATEGORIES, WHICH REPRESENT THE RESPECTIVE STATISTICAL DATA ACCORDING TO THE DEFINED FREQUENCIES. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE SEE HTTPS://OPENDATA.TIRANA.AL/?Q=RRETH - PROJEKTIT

THROUGH THIS PORTAL, THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA HAS INCREASED TH E LEVEL OF PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY AND CONSTANTLY PROVIDES CITIZENS WI T H VARIOUS DATA ON JOBS, INVESTMENTS AND ANY SERVICE THAT IS CARRIE D OUT IN THE CITY, FREE OF CHARGE. THE PORTAL FACILITATES THE FURT H E R ADVANCEMENT IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH, JOURNALISM AND ENHANCES THE MUNICIPALITY’S CAPACITIES TO DETERMINE THE PRIORITIES IN POLICYMAKING DURING THE DECISION - MAKING PROCESS.

T.A.K.E Part S! E Information

APPS FOR YOUTH IN TIRANA ( HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/APLIKACIONE ) SOME OF THE APPLICATIONS ESPECIALLY YOUNG PEOPLE RESIDING IN TIRANA CAN FREELY DOWNLOAD AND USE TO EASILY NAVIGATE THE CITY, OR PARTICIPATE IN CULTURAL AND SPORTS ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS, WHICH THE MUNICIPALITY HAS ADVERTISED IN ITS OFFICIAL WEBSITE ARE: TIRANA OUTOOR , TIRANA XXL, TIRANA IME (MY TIRANA), MOBIKE , WELCOME TIRANA, ETC.

USING THE E - ALBANIA PORTAL ( HTTPS://E - ALBANIA.AL/ ) E - ALBANIA IS A ONE - STOP SHOP FOR ONLINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SERVICES, AS WELL AS AN ONLINE CHANNEL FOR PROVIDING PUBLIC SERVICES 24/7.

T.A.K.E Part S! E Consultation

TRANSPARENCY PROGRAM / PUBLIC CONSULTATION ( HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/ARTIKULL/KONSULTIMI - PUBLIK ) THE MUNICIPALITY OF TIRANA PUBLISHES ON ITS WEBSITE THE PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS YEARLY CALENDAR, TO NOTIFY THE INTERESTED PARTIES ON WHEN TO ATTEND THEM. THE MUNICIPALITY HAS RECENTLY ESTABLISHED A SPECIFIC SECTOR ON CITIZENS PARTICIPATION IN ORDER TO INCREASE THEIR LEVEL OF ENGAGEMENT IN ITS DECISIONS AND EVERYDAY ACTIVITY.

NEWSLETTER FROM THE MAYOR THE MUNICIPALITY’S WEBSITE HAS A SECTION DEDICATED TO SUBSCRIBIN G IN A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER, IN ORDER TO RECEIVE E - MAILS FROM THE MAYOR ON THE LATEST NEWS/EVENTS IN THE CITY.

FOR EXAMPLE, SEE HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/UPLOADS/2016/07/NJOFTIM - PER- PUBLIKUN - P D V _ 1 . P D F

T.A.K.E Part S! E – DECISION MAKING

“YOUR VOICE” ( ZERI YT) - ( HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/FORUM ) “YOUR VOICE” IS AN ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUM INCORPORATED IN A SPECIAL SECTION OF THE MUNICIPALITY’S WEBSITE, WHERE CITIZENS CAN DISCUSS DIFFERENT TOPICS (LITERATURE, ART, SPORTS, ETC.). BTHE CITIZENS CAN TALK AND SHARE IDEAS, WITHOUT WASTING TIME ON SCHEDULING THEIR MEETING, OR TRYING TO MEET EACH OTHER IN PERSON.

SCHEDULING A MEETING WITH THE MUNICIPALITY ONLINE ( HTTPS://TIRANA.AL/REZERVO - TAKIM ) THERE IS A SPECIAL SECTION IN THE MUNICIPALITY’S WEBSITE FOR CITIZENS TO SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THIS INSTITUTION ONLINE. THIS ELEMENT DIRECTLY INCREASES THE LEVEL OF DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION OF THE CITIZENS OF TIRANA.

T.A.K.E Part WEAKNESSES

COMPLEX - DIGITAL MATERIAL, DESPITE ITS ADVANTAGES, IS JUST AS COMPLEX TO PRESERVE AS ITS PHYSICAL COUNTERPART, IF NOT MORE SO IN CERTAIN FORMATS. FOR A PHYSICAL DOCUMENT ONE NEEDS THREE THINGS, THE DOCUMENT, LITERACY, AND LIGHT. HOWEVER, FOR A DIGITAL MEDIUM, YOU NEED THE HARDWARE, THE SOFTWARE, ELECTRICITY, AND A STABLE INTERNET CONNECTION, ON TOP OF WHAT YOU WOULD NEED TO READ THE PHYSICAL DOCUMENT.

EDITABLE - DIGITAL DOCUMENTS ARE VERY EASILY EDITED, WHICH IS WHY PHYSICAL DOCUMENTS ARE STILL MORE READILY “TRUSTWORTHY”, WHEREAS THE PHYSICAL LETTER IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO EDIT WITHOUT IT BEING BLATANTLY OBVIOUS.

T.A.K.E Part WEAKNESSES

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS PERSONAL DATA SECURITY LEVEL AND THE PROTOCOLS TO KEEP THESE DATA SECURE ARE UNKNOWN TO THE PUBLIC. THE SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE USED BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE NOT UPDATED AND FROM TOP SUPPLIERS SO THE PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL SECURITY IS VULNERABLE

SOME PROCESSES ARE NOT FULLY DIGITALIZED AND REQUIRE PERSONAL PRESENCE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO COMPLETE THE CYCLE AND TO GET THE SERVICE OR PRODUCT

LACK OF INTERNET ACCESS FOR THE MAYOR PART OF ALBANIA (ONLY 30 PERCENT HAVE DIRECT ACCESS TO ALBANIA) KU ESHTE GJETUR KJO STATISTIKE ?

T.A.K.E Part WEAKNESSES

ALL THESE E SERVICES LEAD TO STIGMATIZATION AND LIMITATION TO A CERTAIN CATEGORY OF CITIZENS WHO CAN NOT ACCESS TO THESE SERVICES BECAUSE OF LACK OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE FIELD OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS AND SYSTEMS. SPECIALLY, ELDERLY PEOPLE ARE NOT KEEN ON TOWARD INNOVATION.

PEOPLE FEEL LIKE IF THEY FULFILL AN ONLINE COMPLAIN NONE CAN HEAR THEM. PEOPLE ARE MORE IN FACE TO FACE TALKS IN ORDER TO EXPRESS THEIR CONCERNS, RATHER THAN TO COMMUNICATE WITH A COMPUTER, OR TO HEAR A REGISTERED MECHANICAL VOICE.

LACK OF DATA SECURITY IT IS COMMON THAT MOST OF THE DATA CAN BE MISUSED FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

T.A.K.E Part Opportunities

 E-participation in Municipality of Tirana creates diversity of thoughts among the citizens of Tirana  It can develop constructive debate which helps a lot in the process of decision making.  When citizens are part of debate and decision making process they can complain less about the decision making process of Municipality.  E-participation helps citizens be more responsible and self-confidential.

T.A.K.E Part  The decentralization of decision making process and the delegation of a part of responsibilities on decision making process on the citizens, develop a better democracy.  The collaboration between Municipality of Tirana and its citizens can contribute to a better co- governance and co-management of Tirana.

T.A.K.E Part Opportunities

 More information means more transparency and more public spending awareness through the website opendatatirana.al;

 Promoting and implementing e-democracy, also contribute to facilitate Albania integration process with acquis communautaire and EU Digital Agenda Policies;

 Providing information though online tools such as e-map is a great opportunity for thousands of tourists who came every year in Tirana.

T.A.K.E Part THREATS

E- Information Municipality portal (https://tirana.al/)  Threat no.1: Considering this is a page administered by the Municipality of Tirana, it does have a biased point of view on most issues, including information. This combination may prove to be a threat in the citizen’s opinion and trust.  Skeptical - Many users and practitioners tend to be skeptical of solely electronic documents that have no physical base.  People dont trust providing their personal information online. Most of them prefer to stay anonymous when giving complaints or suggestions. The general lack of knowledge regarding data security in all Albania can make them easily get scared and not feel comfortable. Open Data Portal (https://opendata.tirana.al/)  Threat no.1: Tendency of starting initiatives and not keeping up with them has already impacted this website, which in itself is both a threat and a weakness.  Threat no.2: The page offers subpar documents which in turn can be a threat and liability to studies that may be based on these data that are not up to date nor specific. T.A.K.E Part THREATS

E- Consultation Municipality portal (https://tirana.al/)  Threat no.1: Lack of participation / General Disinterest - There is a “Zeri yt” section whose general purpose seems to be to try and help citizens participate in Forums. However, the number of people participating is very low and of no consequence (27 people) while there are no discussions and no comments. This may be as a result of general disinterest on citizen’s part or poor management of the forum section;  Threat no.3: Possibility for a citizen to have more than one account, since accounts are created using personal emails and not unique identifiers. Thusly, the possibility for fraud or misrepresentation increases.

T.A.K.E Part THREATS

 E- Participation  Others  Threat no.1: Issues with technological infrastructure (poor to no internet connection on remote areas) may create a segregation between citizens located in prominent areas and those located in more remote areas, which in itself would only allow for one part of the society to be an active member of e-democracy related processes.  Threat no.2: Unfair representation of different age groups/ social backgrounds may arise since internet users are predominantly a part of younger generations. Older generations again may feel underrepresented, which in case will make the process suffer.  Threat no.3: The lack of trust in government, and their inability to see through a complaint that is expressed. This could create an unchecked power that the government has to control the information and divert or swipe under the carpet the info that does not interest them.  Threat no.4: Dealing with sensitive/personal data or issues, increases threats of hacking and information leak which in turn may harm citizens and the municipality itself.

T.A.K.E Part SWOT

• STRENGTHS • OPPORTUNITIES

APPS ONLINE DOCUMENTS CONSTRUCTIVE DEBATE ONLINE INFORMATION E DEMOCRACY AND INTEGRATION PROCESS INTERACTIVE WEBPAGES FACILITATION E ALBANIA TRUST AND CO OPEN DATA MANAGEMENTS WITH ONLINE CONSULTATION CITIZENS DEBATES

SCEPTICITY SECURITY STIGMATIZATION COMPLEX ONLINE IDENTIFICATION EDITABLE POOR INFASTRACTURE IN PARTIALLY DIGITALISED REMOTE AREAS CONFIDENTIALITY SOCIAL ASPECT OF INTERNET SKILLS MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM AND UPDATE

• WEAKNESSES • THREADS

T.A.K.E Part LIQUIDFEEDBACK - SWOT Analysis

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Useful Harmful (to reach the aims) (to reach the aims) Liquid Evident ballot Democracy

features) Concentration

Shulze method of power

Internal

elements platform ( S W Open source Platform

Active Data use ) s communities

context Social

Information exclusion

External

platform element ( O T

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Strenghts

1 Liquid democracy Direct and representative democracy Delegation of vote Equality of participants in legislative activity Leader-people relationship (plebiscitary democracy)

2 Open Source Platform

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS 3 Shulze Method Condorcet Paradox

First choice Second choice Third choice Citizen 1 a b c Citizen 2 b c a Citizen 3 c a b To have the majority: a 3 b b 3 a c 3 a Whatever alternative is chosen by the group there will always be an alternative that is preferred by a majority of individuals (2 and 3 prefer c to a; 1 and 3 prefer a to b; 1 and 2 prefer b to c).

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Individual freedom (i.e. choosing order of preference) vs. social harmony (uniformity of individual orders). In cyclical situations intransitive majority voting. Who is the winner in the following case? a > b > c > d a > b > d > c d > c > b > a b > c > d > a c > b > d > a 1 Clar-cut uninominal wins a against b, with two votes against one despite having a rating of only 40% 2 Shulze Method, total count of preferences b > c > a > b

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Waknesses

1 Risk of pressure with an overt vote 2 The delegation risks to produce a concentration of power 3 Layout and interface scarce and difficult to use 4 Incoherence of choices at a collective level

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Opportunities

1 Increased participation in public life by communities

2 Greater responsibility and social protagonism of citizens (policy makers and grassroots) 3 More transparent and detailed information on the different topics under discussion 4 Greater control over the political class by the electorate

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Threats

1 Discussions on issues not relevant for the well- being of political life

2 Society increasingly virtualized and concentrated in the same platform 3 Surveillance capitalism: big data control for political or profit-making purposes 4 Access to public life only by digitally literate people (excluding illiterate categories)

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS Final remarks

[Goals]: strengthening the democratic sphere: political participation and respect for the constitutional system. [Tools]: rethinking the intermediate bodies in order to achieve the result.

LIQUIDFEEDBACK – SWOT ANALYSIS allows to

• Create processes for participatory budget planning and management, collaborative planning of regulations, urban spaces or elections.

• Organization of meetings and assemblies, publication of minutes, recordings, proposals for the renewal of governmental bodies or public assemblies, consultations or personal initiatives, receiving notifications of results.

• Convocation of consultations and referendums, collecting citizens' initiatives. Strengths Weaknesses

1) Open source GNU Linux, code-level skin CC 1) The ones who manage the back-office are unknown, and code on github Microsoft, copyleft. as well as the management and the funds. 2) Intuitive graphic design and user-friendly social- 2) No information is given about the use of sensitive like features. KYC login data and sentiment of logged in users. 3) Allows citizens, public and private institutions, 3) Any data controllers and/or data protection officers NGOs, associations to organize and propose internal or external to the management are not initiatives indipendently. explicit. 4) Allows single users to decide how to manage 4) User reliability calculated on the basis of public investments and funds. participation and active interaction.

Opportunities Threats

1) Partnership with companies, apps, institutions, 1) The user trustworthiness system evaluates by universities and experts to develop new forms of activity and may be abused by third parties or participation and (online) political and economic fanatics (depending on the local political context). education, and to facilitate independent 2) Uncovered user tracking and privacy breaches. organization. 3) Digital illiteracy and digital divide may preclude 2) Switch-off of the channels of dialogue with the the participation of different minorities. PA, investments with rationalisation of public ICT 4) Lack of an internal authority that can guarantee expenditure. the truthfulness of information, the privacy of users, 3) Dedicated Quest Board for organizations and data management, with the risk of data theft. institutions to post problems they detect. 4) Real-time links between various political platforms on updates of foreign activities. Critical analysis

▪ Decidim was launched in 2016 in the municipal context of Barcelona. In 2017 it was used in nine Spanish cities and was tested by the Diputació de Barcelona, the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Commision nationale du débat public (CNDP) and the City of Helsinki. In Barcelona there were 27,010 people registered, 14 participatory processes and one city initiative, with 11,965 proposals submitted. 70% of the proposals were adopted as public policy by the municipality. (Source: FPA Digital 360).

▪ Scenarios of independence or strong political extremism marked by social and economic splits (i.e. Catalans and Basques in Spain for Decidim), or even legal and functional discrimination on minorities marked by digital illiteracy, can compromise the neutrality of the platform. Social design in graphics and user reliability calculation can distort participants' impressions.

▪ The open source code available on github from Microsoft, and supervised by the GNU Linux community with Creative Common code side skins offer full copyleft availability. Decidim also uses multi-tenant architecture that allows each user and organization to work on a specific virtual copy located on a single server.

▪ Decidim's strengths make it an advanced platform, with an overall solid base, but which needs to be redefined in its technical and administrative aspects. Participatory democracy

▪ The limits of participatory democracy and political platforms can be sought both in the organisation of the platform and in the external preparation of each individual. Decidim has proven to have many dark points and to be exposed on many fronts.

▪ We must not rely too much on participatory democracy, because it can deceive us that the masses can regulate themselves and act in the interests of all. In reality, masses are hardly ever able to self- manage themselves consciously and are more vulnerable than individuals to media attacks.

▪ This does not mean that participatory democracy cannot work, but it needs conditions that require a complete restructuring of our society. Political platforms could work better if they were integrated into our political consciousness education, while they are still considered at most optional means. SWOT ANALYSIS INTERNAL ELEMENTS ▪ Easier and faster political mobilisation: quicker ▪ Reduced number of users taking part in the and cheaper access to internal deliberations and deliberations; decisions; ▪ No law passed by the M5S comes from the ▪ Dialogue area open to all members; Rousseau Platform; ▪ Transparency and continuous updating on the ▪ Lack of third-party bodies to certify the guarantee work of elected citizens; of the members' vote; ▪ New way of participation in the legislative and ▪ Vulnerability of the platform (50,000 fine electoral process; committed by the Privacy Authority): possible ▪ Rapidity in the processing of results; tampering during voting; ▪ Possibility to carry out distance learning courses ▪ Exclusion of the elderly electorate; (e-learning). ▪ Conflict of interest between the President and the Treasurer of Rousseau and the M5S; ▪ Technical problems due to overloading of access. STRENGHTS WEAKNESSES

EXTERNAL ▪ Changing Italian politics towards a more digital ▪ Vulnerability of sensitive data; and smart future; ▪ Uncertainty of actual voting on the Platform; ELEMENTS ▪ Reducing the cost of deliberations and voting; ▪ Lack of the principle of voting secrecy; ▪ Greater consideration of citizens' initiative ▪ Possible cyber attacks; proposals and greater public involvement; ▪ Exclusion of the media-illiterate part of the ▪ Improvement of the Italian infrastructure population; network and internet coverage. ▪ Supervisory power in the hands of a few people; ▪ Absence of a guarantee of legality and constitutionality. OPPORTUNITIES THREATS PARTICIPA – SWOT ANALYSIS Participa Podemos online patform

Strengths Weaknesses

Direct and applied democracy lowers the Direct and applied democracy lowers barriers (costs) of participation the value of participation

Disintermediation is actually It's publicly funded, co-designed with the reintermediation or infomediation. public, and jointly managed Staff and top management create the It is made with free software, available platform and call for votes, defining the and editable on GitHub forms of participation.

In all of Spain there are only 518,000 70% of the proposals on members, 0.01% of the population. decidim.barcelona become public policies of the city

Opportunities Threats

The limits of traditional participation are overtaken, it’s allowed to inform, collaborate, Lack of control system. The platform only needs to discuss, challenge, monitor and certify know a person's ID number to register them. A processes householder can register everyone and vote for everyone

Rebirth of intermediate bodies like the political The problem of leadership, whose formation is in party, but in new forms. Confidence in danger of becoming opaque, remains. platforms revives confidence in political representatives The current problems on social media persist: bubble filter, walled garden, dependency and data The age of platform capitalism also gives birth power to a platform politics

Summary

• - What is democratic awareness?

• - 1990-2019: the historic background. Events that influenced the democracy;

• - Future scenario 2019-2030: ideas to improve democratic awareness: a. Educational projects for school; b. Digital platforms; c. Web learning. It consists in a process that, in a indefined period of time, augments the democratic empowerment of civil society, increases the knowledge of democratic context and the democratic institutions. 1990-2019: the historic background

Events that influenced democracy in five aspects:

- Political: the fall of Berlin wall, Berlusconi’s personal party, Arab springs, populism and the use of social media and social network; - Social: the invention of Facebook, the fall of Twin tower, Obama’s elector campaign, GDPR (2018); - Technological: the transition from ARPANET to Internet;

- Economical: the MONEYTIRIZATION of fake news pages, EU digital free market;

- Environmental: smart cities, fight against climate change (friends 4 future). 2019-2030: future scenario

- Educational projects for the school (primary, middle and high school);

- Web learning; - Tackling digital literacy. Educational projects

Primary school Middle and High School

• Introduce interactive lessons • Introduction of a platform that allows the students to partecipate on the • Laboratories to prepare children on decision making process within the being aware of the work local school; administration and the government; • Lessons about digital information • Children can be involved during the and projects against online fake election of their reppresentatives. news. Tackling digital literacy

- Digital platform that permits to the citizens within a local area/small city to decide and vote for issues related to their everyday life concern; - Web learning within the platform that provides information about democratic issues for young’s and adult’s citizens. Conclusion

We think that, to increase awareness of democratic processes and institutions, there is a need to change of education. We think that, providing a certain type of lessons and information, it is possible to prepare people to become active citizens, shaping the society they live in and taking part in the political discourse. We think that the public administrations should have a central role in this project, with the help, contribution and collaboration of NGOs and CSOs. The project should be implemented step by step, starting from the local and getting to an international level. Clarissa Pandino Emma Pagliarusco Loreta Isaraj Luca Marino Ludovico di Monaco Massimiliano Avino Rexhino Biba Selenia Anastasi Stefano Falchi Vincenzo Santonocito

Society

Alienation

Individualism

Lack of interest

Economy

Production increase

Digital economy

Market fragmentation

Technology

VR, AR, AI

Addiction

Hybridisation

Environment

Ecofriendly devices

Global warming

Sustainability

Politics

Decreasing participation

Lack of transparency

Fake politic representation

Environment Culture Health

Infrastructures School Investments Check the real budget

Check programmes

Make your proposal

Learn by playing

Real-life rewards

Name of the App

Digi-Democracy

Overview : 1. An App where you can make 2. Democracy represents you so propsal and poll an specific issue. make your choice , suggest your opinion, share your Idea with defenders of Democracy.

3. A news feed with posts from EU Parliament and European Court of Justice.

4. Complex registration: a person- one account ⚫ 5. The creation of an app that can promote a direct participation of people who can vote in Albania and Italy.

⚫ 6. Live videos of what's happening over the world about participation and democracy. Goals:

➢ Participation of ⚫ Raise participation; ⚫ Consolidate citizens encourage, share democracy in ideas, make Albania and around suggestions, EU comments.

⚫ Improve the ⚫ Developing digital ⚫ Share and raise knowledge of policy referendums citizen's voice Categories of the app:

⚫ Brief information about the app and its purposes.

⚫ Polls.

⚫ The creation of the account for each person based on the ID number.

⚫ Proposals, critics and improvements.

⚫ Statistics of the pull votes.

⚫ Politics (proposals of the parties), economics (how the main party will affect the economy of the country after the elections) and social cathegories (about social programs and ideas) Digi-Democracy App Homepage proposal

Information Poll Proposals Statistics Account Referendum Your voice Results Log-in Specific law Ideas Data Politics Complains Economy Social Demography Gender Target groups Social democracy

Group members: Anxhela Mustafai Haxhire Vezi Ina Xhakolli Ina Shenplaku Klaudio Lecini Migel Shehu Neada Mucaj Rikela Fusha Sara Galentino Sabina Babameto Ylenia De Riccardis Content

Definition of social democracy Shell methodology: Scenarios Our idea Expectations Social democracy (RationalWiki)

the state needs to provide security and equality of opportunity for its people should actively reorder society in a way that is conducive to such developments such changes should be brought about gradually, legitimated by a democratically- elected majority Shell methodology: Scenarios Achievements Challenges Society Technology as a catalys of society People are moving away from revolution (inspired by Arab sping) humanity and closer to digitalization Involvement of all generations (population is ageing) Technology E-voting (transparency, efficiency) E-commerce (threat of free Face recognition documents market) Cyber security Environment Smart cities (environmental friendly Urbanization cities) Climate change (migration) Economics Digital banks (NEO banks) Cut of (traditional) jobs Innovation in industry Hacking of systems Redefinition of jobs Politics Online campaigns (less costs, less Influence by the third parties (E.x corruption) China, Russia, populist forces) Application for different government services (more accountability, more public The challenge

 (Un)Employement  Due to technology, there will be a redefinition of the job market.

 Unemployment will impact the economy, causing social threats such as social isolation, atrophying of work skills, erosion of confidence and self esteem. Our idea (1)

 Online platform about soft skills (website and app)  Training people to improve/boost their abilities.  Target group: students, young professionals, unemployed from a vulnerable background  Free access/bonuses/discounts.

2E-Collab Our idea (2)

 Governenment platform to be managed by employment offices, enhanced by private stakeholders.  Connect trainers with people seeking to improve their soft skills.  Private parties can offer spaces, funds, human resources, in return of tax cuts (for example). Our idea (3) Steps of implementation:

 Division of responsibilities between governmental actors and third actors (businesses, NGOs)  Creating the network of service providers (Trainers, businesses, NGOs)  Launching of the platform: pilot in a municipality Expectations

 A better trained workforce  Improvement of soft skills  Better orientation towards labour market  Inclusion and equal opportunities for vulnerable groups  Businesses get actively involved in the process of training people and can subsequently offer job opportunities  Reduction the gap between university (education) and employment PLATFORM DEMOCRACY Digital platforms for proposal and voting of citizens initiatives

Pilot projects for online voting in local and parliamentary elections

SCENARIO 2019-2030

More access to Internet connection

Balance between safe identification and privacy Big data corporations

Digital literacy: young Vs old generations

Digital pollution

Democracy awareness

Plescitary democracy and authorianism

Cybercrime, cyberterrorism, cybersecurity WWW.DEMO.GOV.IT

● General Information ● News

● Open Calls SIGN UP / LOG IN

SIGN UP

LOCAL REPORT

NATIONAL PROPOSE

EUROPEAN VOTE

REPORT ● Photo ● Caption ● Location

● Categories (optional) PROPOSE

● Title ● Abstract (350 words) ● Copyright

VOTE

AGREE DISAGREE

The Platform Democracy presents SMARTDEMO

Version 0.0 | November 2019, Naples ACTUAL SCENARIO

Low rate of participation in election Decreasing trust in centralized institution Perception of low involvement Discouragement to take responsibilities Discouragement to participate actively to share proposal Too much bureaucracy and low Tim-effectiveness Possibility of corruption

CONCEPT

We want all the citizens to feel involved in democratic processes, than empower and enable them to shape the future they want! VALUE PROPOSITION

Smartdemo is a knowledge-based open source platform that provides to the citizens high-quality information concerning electoral programs during elections and enable them to actively shape a job market based on the talents embedded in urban areas. AWARENESS trough INFORMATION

PARTICIPATION trough ACTIVATION ACCESS TO PLATFORM

Aks to your Registry Ask for the fingerprint Log in and add your Office to record your reader device preferences fingerprint and associate it to your Fiscal Code RAISE AWARENESS

Every Party can SmartDemo Every citizen can upload is own SmartDemo provides classifies contents vote for the programme (pdf comparison between into clusters and favourite version, various proposals in simplify it using AI alternative through infographics, the same cluster and DLM e-vote videos) ACTIVATE LOCAL TALENTS 1 REPORT THE PROBLEM UPLOADING THE PHOTO

ACTIVATE THE TASK AND THE RELATIVE SMART 2 CONTRACT

3 CALL TO ACTION: TASK/TALENT FIT

4 SOLVE THE PROBLEM, UPDATE THE PROOF AND GET IMMEDIATLY REWARDED

Budget projects in Participatory local communities.

Democracy E-consultation tools for youth associations and informal groups on the use of shared public spaces managed by local administration. Establishmentof an online governamental portal, accessible through personal ID number on a local level (municipalities)

Gradual digitalizationof documents and administrative data --> all personal records Online governmental portal Userscan access all documentsthrough their profile --> cloud system

Updated inreal time --> multi-tenants Services provided

Register ID info; Social credit system--> healthcare and reward goodbehavior social/school records

Live streams of real- time meetings --> budgetary Participatory activities commission, political meetings,etc.

Offline and online education--> improve digital literacy LIGHTEVALUATION TO REPORTISSUES:THEY CAN NON-MONETARYCOMPENSATION EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIESWILL RESULTIN VOLUNTEER TO GET INVOLVED IN SOLVING SOCIAL CREDIT POINTS--> BOTH ONLI NE AND THEM AND RECEIVE BENEFITS--> VOUCHERSFOR OFFLINE (E.G.EDUCATIONAL GAMES, EDUCATI DIFFERENTSERVICES (E.G. TRANSPORT, ONAL LESSONS) CULTURAL AND SOCI AL EVENTS, …)

Social credit system People can interact with the speakers through comment and reply system

Live-stream Comments can be upvoted service or downvoted

Use of AI for filtering spam and excessive hate speech CROWDFUNDING BUDGETING CROWD VOTING REPORTING ISSUES SOURCING AND COMMENTING

Participatory activities In addition to normal accessibility through personal computer or smartphone, we suggest public portals in main POIs and institutions to access the online portal at any time forfree.

Accessibility

Printing willbe available THE PORTAL ISALL-INCLUSIVE, ALL AGES ARE MINORS' ACCOUNTSARE MANAGED BY DIGITAL EDUCATION FOR THE USE OFTHE PORTAL CONSIDERED. THE PARENT OR CUSTODIANSUNTIL WILL BE PROVIDEDVIA AN ONLINE AND OFFLINE SPECIFIEDAGE (E.G.SIXTEEN) APPROACHCATEREDTO ALL AGES. (E.G. AT SCHOOL FOR MINORS, AT COMMUNITY SERVICES FOR OLDER GENERATI ONS. ONLI NE INFORMATI ON AND TUTORIALSWILL ALWAYSBE AVAILABLE)

Target Audience Gladiola Ago Daniele Biolo Brunilda Brati Mevi Dibra Jola Frasheri Team Elona Karaj Jetnor Kasmi Alessandro Mazzi Doris Pasha Giuseppe Sanchez Darerca Tupponi ERASMUS+ y r o t a p i c i t r a

Democracy P PARTICIPATORY BUDGET PROJECT IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES.

USE OF APPS TO INFORM THREE Y OUNG PEOPLE OF V OTING SPHERES PROCEDURES.

E-CONSULTATION TOOLS FOR YOUTH ASSOCIATIONS AND INFORMAL GROUPS ON THE USE OF SHARED PUBLIC SPACES. One App.

EUROPEAN MODEL.

Adopted nationally. Adapted regionally. Personalized individually. Technology

Society

Five Fields. Politics

Environment

Economy

S

T T

I

W WORK

HO Accessible through personal ID and institutional e-mail User-friendly Engagement FUNCTIONS Interactivity Content Online City planning planning voting voting prospect prospect WHO WE ARE

Do miziana Palumb o Fr anc e sc a Be r t in Ro b e r t a Ro mb o là A d mir im Daf k u Ig li Do mi Enr ik Ke c o A r mino Halla V ilso n Bllo shmi Mar ing le n Kur t aj A le ssand r o Mazzi CONCLUSIONS ______

The T.A.K.E. PART project showed the undoubtful positive impacts electronic participation can have on the governments-citizen relations. Assuming that the younger generation enjoy a stronger digital literacy than the older ones (the ruling generations in EU today), working on the digital gap is a compulsory goal for the efforts to improve citizens’ participation in policy- making. The desire for engagement and participation across young people is not dead, but its nature may have changed in terms of the issues people are interested in and within the mechanisms which should be used to engage them (Millard et al., 2009).

From information to active participation, the influence citizens can exert on policy-making rises: “Currently, the responsibility for policy formulation and final decision mainly rests with the government – that is the way our representative democracies. Participation doesn’t replace formal rules and principles of democracy, such us free and fair elections, representatives’ assemblies, accountable executives, a politically neutral public administration, pluralism, respect for human rights, but participatory activities are complementary and have always existed in democracy in some forms and to some extent” (Gramberger, 2001).

The T.A.K.E. PART project highlighted the expectations of young citizens toward the future of policy-making. Since they use digital tools daily in their routine, a participatory democracy for the future needs a complete integration with the digital world as the only way to guarantee a wide participation from the present and coming generations. The current disaffection toward traditional politics represents a major challenge to EU democracy and e-participation can be considered the best strategy to promote a real, inclusive 21st century democracy.

Key issues (Macintosh, 2006) for short terms information systems research to support e- participation are moving from experimentation and pilots to large-scale usage, understanding how to design tools to facilitate online deliberation and support collaborative working environments, address the need for reliable representation of the information and analysis of contributions made by the civil society and the need to embed technology into political processes, rather than treat it as an isolated exercises.

Other challenges to face are also: establishing a normative level, that require political endorsement and support, defining the capacity for engagement (in terms of valuing and managing participation and of having the needed participatory skills), developing the necessary procedures and guidelines for engagement (in terms of typology per objectives and methods). Moreover, there is the need to recognize that participatory democracy matters and that citizen and grass roots movements matter to participatory democracy and thus to e-participation: participation should be seen as a fundamental right in a democracy which contributes to better policies and greater societal stability, recognition is required and should be open and communicated, so that a participative culture is created and maintained (Millard et al., 2009).

148 E-participation should be considered within the democratic engagement, by unifying the vision for participation. A new paradigm is needed, with the aim to redistribute power “so that responsibility for meeting the challenge of economic, demographic, environmental, social and cultural change is shared between citizens, states and communities as well as with the private sector” (Millard, 2006). And in order to reach such unified vision, governments need to recognize the capacity and contribution young citizens have to discuss and generate policy option when the agenda is shared and commit, while people need to accept a higher degree of responsibility to enhance policy-making (Gramberger, 2001). As the T.A.K.E. PART project proved, an effective e-participation needs to join digital literacy and futures literacy (Miller, 2015), defined as the ability to use the future to innovate the present. By working on futures scenarios, society and politics can anticipate the coming challenges related toto technology evolution, involving specific possibilities and concerns, but also to the overarching objectives of participation per sé, in relation to democracy and its values and procedures. The temporal horizon for planning should introduce other elements to participatory projects: planners tend to look at change in one particular phenomenon or subject area, futurists tend to look at change in a variety of areas and are more multidisciplinary; planners' time horizons tend to be short (3 to 5 years), futurists’ around 25 or more years (Glenn, 2009).

Futures studies and research should and can be input to improve planners' work: they can give planners, alternative futures, long-term opportunities to include in their planning and long-term problems to avoid. They could define alternative (possible, probable, desiderable) futures from which decision makers could select and develop anticipation through participatory methods. With futures studies, planners can create plans to achieve that future. Most of participatory projects are short term and the community vision rarely goes over 5 years: futures research explores futures scenarios and could another element to consider (e-)participation projects, ensuring that people are encouraged to think long-range, and assess primary but also secondary and tertiary consequences of actions from alternative futures.

Participation could lead to constant collective intelligence systems in the future or not. Coleman and Gøtze (2001) outline four possible models of how e-democracy might work: the direct of plebiscitary democracy is where technology supports direct democracy; the second model is online communities, where technology is concerned with supporting civic networks; the third model concerns the use of online tools to gauge public opinion through surveys and opinion polls; finally, the fourth model focuses on the use of technology to engage citizens in policy deliberation, that is, on the deliberative element within democracy. It is the most difficult to generate and sustain, and needs access to balanced information, an open agenda, time to consider issues expansively, freedom from manipulation or coercion, a rule-based framework for discussion, participation by an inclusive sample of citizens, scope for free interaction between participants, and recognition of differences between participants, but rejection of status-based prejudice. Upcoming collective intelligence platforms open news possibilities for strengthening the relations between governments and citizens. Will all this lead to change the representative democracy,

149 especially considering new coming technologies for interaction? We should already start to anticipate the democracy we want for the coming 30 years, up to 2050. The contributions collected in this Handbook evaluate the main reasons for developing e-participatory projects and strategies, simplify the main elements of a participatory project life cycle, by giving tips to better plan your activities, to be adapted basing on the policy-making life cycle and on the kind of participatory project, and proposing practical solutions to be implemented at a local, national and European level in the coming years. Policy-makers could use this Handbook to drive their efforts to foster democracy and participation in the European society. A final remark should be emphasized. The use of digital tools to engage citizens will increase in the future, but in the planning of a project or a strategy of e-democracy one should not forget that technology is always an enabler, non the solution. Today, technological solutionism nurtures the dream to solve all the present and coming social world challenges using new technologies and digital solutions. This dream promoted the rise of technocratic powers that enlarged the divide between civil society and the ruling class. In the platform society, CEOs and technocrats have gained more power than elected leaders from traditional, representative democracies. As T.A.K.E. PART project’s participants proved, this scenario could frustrate any attempt to align technological and digital development with the legitimate expectations of citizens and, mainly, younger generations, for a more inclusive, equal, and participatory society. Consequently, the democratization of technologies should be considered the first step of any project aimed at developing thorough projects and solutions of e-democracy able to be implemented inside the civil society. The answer to the question posed by technologist and futurist Jaron Lanier, “Who Owns the Future?” (Lanier, 2013), should always be the same of the funding fathers of democracy: we the people.

150 REFERENCES ______

➢ Anttiroiko, A.-V. (2003), “Building strong E-democracy – The role of technology in developing democracy for the information age”, in “Communication of the ACM”, Vol. 46, N. 9, p. 121- 128, September. ➢ Arnstein, S.R. (1969), “A Ladder of Citizen Participation," JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July, pp. 216- 224. ➢ Coleman, S., Gøtze, J. (2001), “Bowling together: Online Public engagement in policy deliberation”, Hansard Society, London. ➢ Di Berardo, M. (2020), “La comunicazione pubblica della scienza e della tecnologia per la partecipazione sociale al 2050” (a.t. “Public communication of science and technology for social participation at 2050”), in Orsi, M., Paura, R., “Between science and society”, Italian Institute for the Future, ISBN 978-88-99790-18-9. ➢ E-participation.eu (2012), “E-participation Best Practice Manual”, INTERREG IVC- ECitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in E_uropean cities and regions”, http://eparticipation.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/eCitizeni_manuaal_A4_ENGLISH- 1.pdf. ➢ Glenn, J.C. (2009), “Participatory methods”, in Glenn, J.C., Gordon, T.J. (eds., 2009), “Future Research Methodology Version 3.0”, The Millennium Project, May, cap. 23, pp. 29-45, ISBN 978-0-9818941-1-9. ➢ Glenn, J.C., Florescu, E. (2017), “State of the Future 19.1”, Library of Congress. ➢ Gordon, T.J., Glenn, J.C., 2009, “Environmental scanning”, in Glenn, J.C., Gordon, T.J. (eds., 2009), “Future Research Methodology Version 3.0”, The Millennium Project, May, cap. 23, pp. 29-45, ISBN 978-0-9818941-1-9. ➢ Gramberger, M. (2001), “Citizens as partners. OECD handbook on information, consultation and public participation in policy making”, OECD, https://www.internationalbudget.org/wp- content/uploads/Citizens-as-Partners-OECD-Handbook.pdf. ➢ Hockly N., Dudeney G., Pegrum M., Digital Literacies. Resources in Language Teaching, Routledge, Oxon, UK, 2013. ➢ Kinyik, M. (2015), “Guideline for e-participation in European Union Policy-making”, telecentre- Europe AISBL, Brussels. https://euparticipation.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/e- participation_guideline_final.pdf ➢ Korthagen, I., van Keulen, I., Hennen, L., Aichholzer, G., Rose, G., Lindner, R., Goos, K., Nielsen, R. Ø., (2018) “Prospects for e-democracy in Europe”, Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) panel, European Technology Assessment Group (ETAC) Scientific Foresight Unit of the DG European Parliamentary Research Service (ERPS), February, IP/G/STOA/FWC/2013-001/LOT8/C4, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/603213/EPRS_STU(2018)6032 13_EN.pdf ➢ Lanier, J., (2013), Who Owns the Future?, Simon & Schuster, New York. ➢ Macintosh, A. (2004), “Characterizing E-participation in policy-making”, Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii international Conference on System Sciences.

151 ➢ Macintosh, A., Whyte, A. (2006), “Evaluating how Eparticipation changes local democracy”, Paper presented at the eGovernment workshop 2006 (eGov06), September 11, London, UK, http://www.gov2u.org/publications/Evaluating_eParticipation.pdf. ➢ Macintosh, A., Whyte, A. (2008), “Towards an evaluation framework for eParticipation”, in “Transforming Government: People, Process & Policy”, 2(1), pp. 16-30, White Rose Research Online, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51546.pdf. ➢ Millard, J. (2006), “eGovernance and eParticipation: lessons from Europe in promoting inclusion and empowerment”, June, 27-28, in “e-Participation and e-Government: Understanding the present and creating the Future. ➢ Millard, J., Nielsen, M. M., Warren, R., Smith, S., Macintosh, A., Tarabanis, K., Tambouris, E., Panopoulou, E., Efpraxia, D., Parisopoulos, K. (2009), “European eParticipation Summary Report”, ICTs for Government and Public Services, November, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=1499. ➢ Miller, R. (2015), “Learning, the Future, and Complexity. An Essay on the Emergence of Futures Literacy”, European Journal of Education, 50(4), pp. 513-523. ➢ OECD (2002), “Glossary of key terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management”, Development Assistance Committee, https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/2754804.pdf. ➢ OECD (2013), “Problems and Problems of E-Democracy. Challenges of online citizen engagement”, Emerging Economies transition, OECD (Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development) Publication Service, Paris, http://www.oecd.org/governance/digital-government/35176328.pdf. ➢ Smith, S., Millard, J., Macintosh, A. (2011), “A three-layered framework for evaluating e- participation”, in International Journal of Electronic Governance (2011), vol. 4, N. 4, pp. 304- 321, January. ➢ Tambouris, E., Macintosh, A., Dalakiouridou, E., Smith, S., Panopoulou, E., Tarabanis, K., Millard, J. (2015), “eParticipation in Europe: Currante State and practical recommendation”, January, in Gil-Garcia, J.R. (2015), “E-Government Success around the World: Cases, Empirical Studies, and Practical Recommendations”, IGI Global, USA. ➢ Turoff, M. (1970), “The design of a Policy Delphi”, in Technological Forecasting and Social change, vol. 2, n.2, pp. 149-171. ➢ Whyte, A., Macintosh, A. (2003), “Analysis and Evaluation of e-consultations”, in e-Service Journal; Volume 2, No 1 “e-democracy in Practice”; Indiana University Press; 2003.

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PROJECT MANAGERS

Roberto Paura Italian Institute for the Future

Daniela Porpiglia Italian Institute for the Future

Mona Xhexhaj

European Movement Albania

LOCAL COORDINATORS

Carmen Papaleo Italian Institute for the Future

Nirvana Deliu

European Movement Albania

CONSULTANT Mara Di Berardo Italian Institute for the Future Millennium Project Italian Node

SUPPORTING STAFF Fabio Caiazzo Graphic design Luigi Correra Photography and video